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
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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