The lady outside who looks in the mirror
Is wrinkled and weathered with age.
She has to squint and lean and peer
When she looks at a printed page.
Her hair is thin, it’s straight as a pin
And turning from brown to gray.
The lady outside reminisces and sighs
As she dreams of yesterday.
When the girl in the mirror had a young, pretty face
And a grin as wide as the moon.
She smiles again, her wrinkles erase
And she blooms like a rose in mid-June.
The lady outside hums the same tune
She sang when the years slid by slow
Now she wonders and twirls a strand of a curl
“How did I ever grow old?”
The lady outside, the girl deep within,
Look nothing alike although they are kin
“I know where I’m going ’cause I know where I’ve been
and every new day is a chance to begin
relishing life all over again.”
She’s effusively wise, exuberant-old,
Matured like good wine, full natured and bold
Both youth and age are splendidly rolled
Into a woman with a heart of pure gold
Who looks in the mirror—the reflection she sees
Is the girl in her eyes:
She is you, and she’s me.
Published in Poems