By the time we’re in our fifties and sixties
we’ve still not arrived at The Gate Of Meaning.
It remains locked and the Gatekeeper
is on coffee break with the keys for sugar.
There’s a bench to sit on for the infirm
if we dare to admit we are.
The wind arises to keep us company,
blowing in unchanging memories
that love their haunting.
We notice holes in the dirt,
still waiting for seeds not planted long ago
for that something more we were here to grow.
Through the gate the garden’s full,
it became what it wanted to be when it grew up.
Could we, too, if the gate we passed through?
Coffee break stretched into lunch break
and our tummies rumble our starvation.
If only gate posts moved backwards
we’d be on the other side without effort
because over there is where we want to be.
The Old Familiar comes and sits with us,
huffing excitedly that it caught up,
the cliff we climbed almost too much for it,
but familiar conquers all.
“Do you have the key?” we ask.
“Oh heavens, no. Who needs a key off the familiar path?”
We sit and wait, comforted and contemplating
our way back to younger days longed for.
A bird passes over the gate,
mocking in its ease of not needing a key
to eat a worm who crawled underneath
what holds us back.
If we were them (we wish we were)
the key to gates would not be needed
and our seventies would welcome us as we are
and open our next gate, the one after this.
A jingle of keys.
The Gatekeeper approaches.
The Old Familiar stands and says, “It’s time to go.”
We remain seated,
forgetting why we came to the gate in the first place.