Prime (poem)

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Prime

Some of you will remember

The eccentric schoolteacher who

Liked to speak of the prime of life.

The prime, she would say, or

One’s prime or my prime or yours.

And to us and the children, it may have seemed

She herself was passed what

May have been called her prime,

Passed and on the declining side, down

From the apex, the summit, the mountaintop...

But who’s to say she was not right

And that was in fact
Her prime, after one or more

Aborted lift-offs, scrubbed missions,

Abandoned dreams.

Or even that

Any time or every time has

A prime, if we can see it or sense it

Or be it or live it? Who

Could say that, for sure?

Heading what may seem to some

Down, or just starting up

Or upward,

Who’s to say?

From this little hollow, this quaint

Modest valley or dale or depression only,

Looking ahead, up I suppose,

I have entered, let me say, the prime

Of my old age.  Yes, Miss?

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