Wild Woman Tells All

Wild Woman, Indicating the Direction

Listen up, kids, because
Wild Woman has a few nuggets 
of hard-won wisdom to share.
Call 'em Crone Crunchies,
because you can put toppings on them,
and try to make them sweeter,
but in the end,
you're still eating what's underneath:
good for you, if not especially tasty.

First, you will look all over:
another book, another path,
a different place,
a different life,
tried on like your Great Grandma's old hat,
beautiful in its day,
but bearing no resemblance
to the life you will eventually
call your own.

You will look to person after person
to be that Other who will magically
make you whole,
then find out it is
An Inside Job.
Sorry, for that is the hardest truth I know.

Also difficult,
but necessary, 
is looking Within
and discovering that,
contrary to all your misgivings,
you are not more horrible or less deserving
than any other human.
You'll do, in a pinch.

You will give of yourself till you are
stripped bare,
yet it will never ever
seem to be
Enough.
Enough is what, eventually,
you will discover 
you are left with,
after you stop 
all the Looking 
and the Doing,
and you down-size on 
the Reclamation Projects,
for there clearly isn't enough time
to save the world,
or anyone, really, but, perhaps, yourself.
Enough is what's left
after you
strip away what doesn't serve you,
sit on whichever porch
you've landed up on,
and just stare at the sky
and listen to the birds.

After all that striving and searching,
isn't it a bummer to discover
that it's just that easy?

I always look forward to Wednesday, because Kim's prompts at Poets United's Verse First are always so wonderful. Today Kim wants us to tell the wild truth. So as usual, I just started tapping on the keys, to find out what I am thinking. Do check out Verse First. (I am eager to see what everyone else knows. Maybe we can combine the knowledge and start a movement!)