to measure up

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone

and that's where you renew your springs

that never dry up.

--Pearl Buck

when it's quiet

and i'm quite alone

January's cold frozen earth

i look hard and long

my life

my chosen course

my dying

it all is before me

all that was and is

now coming full circle

with wonder

at the patriarchs words

spoken and recorded

forty-three years ago

he could not have known

but God did

"you shall live to fill

the full measure of your creation"

as a girl and young woman 

lines of promise

now a woman of fifty-seven

words of comfort

i am enough

...