Finding Balance

 

Is there a formula for how time
passes as we age?  At age five, a year
is a long one-fifth of a lifetime.  At
age seventy-five, a year swiftly passes as 
one-seventy-fifth of a lifetime.  Yet
an hour at either age can be endless
depending on positive or negative
experience and how engaged you are
in the moment.  For me, at seventy-
five, positive and negative events
are like foreground/background phenomena.
Double awareness holds them together
in an ever-changing balancing act.
 
I’m not in a war or immigrant zone,
but I’m aware of both the killing and the
displacing.  I carry that with me into
the serene forests where I once prayed and
danced.  The sacred dance didn’t end when
I stopped dancing.  It continues when I
leave the woods for heavier atmospheres.
Sacredness underscores protest, phone calls,
and letter writing.  At times, protest becomes
sacred dance.  Transformation of foreground
and background is the balance I’m sometimes
blessed to find in my ever decreasing
time on earth and ever deepening hours. 

 

For my prompt "Mathematics!?" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2026 Susan L. Chast