midlife changes curled-up
forties are fiddlehead ferns
it doesn’t look like much
until it becomes unfurled
and once we get it open
things may break apart —
eventually nests unwind
but will we bear fortitude
to turn that new life into
something just as beautiful
and yet even more free
spiraling towards fifty?
—Terri Guillemets
suddenly my life feels
like the air before a storm
silent, searching, charged
an imminent disaster
with destructive beauty
bright sun here and now
dark clouds at my horizon
electrified waiting
a whirlwind of stillness
it’s building, billowing
but to i know not where
and possibly to nothing
no body to forecast
whether or whether not
my future lies ahead
feeling ghosts in the wind
restlessness & anticipation
i dread this storm
but somehow
more than that
i welcome it, ache for it
oh i sorely need to become
sodden, grounded
struggle bedraggled
so i can revive
regrow vibrant —
dead branches torn away
old beliefs ripped from roots
worry whipped to shreds
powerful bolts striking
stronger than anything
i can create myself
blind me — enflame my entire sky
i want to look at the world anew
and that starts
with my own vision
i’m ready
for a new version
my being has become torrential
yet minimal — nearly imperceptible
not yet in a crisis, still
i’m bordering one, circling it
crying out for that flash point
beckoning it, to break —
to shatter my former self
and my current nothingness
into a mended calm
risen from the storm
rain, gales, hail —
i don’t care
just let it come
i need to be reborn
from the wild remains
of my inner tempests —
no, i do not want to die
but only to live again
—Terri Guillemets
There was time —
I know there was —
saw it spread out
all ahead of me,
a beautiful infinity —
immortal fresh-faced
clock of opportunity —
numberless, handless
no ticks & no tocks
save for the sound
of distant decades
too quiet to really hear —
but at forty-eight years
a sudden gear-grinding
cacophony, the outspread
blanket of eternity
has begun to suffocate,
wrapped around me
limiting my agility
darkening my path —
I’m having trouble
breathing, I no longer
see that clock open
or free, its movements
now deafen me, its hands
tear into my flesh and
grip tight my throat —
I am choking on
second thoughts
at this midlife hour
this day of reckoning
—Terri Guillemets
she sees west
glances north
east goes past in a blur
south appears
and she wobbles —
this is not exploration
it’s spinning —
the gentle rotation
of youth
has accelerated
out of control —
middle age, presbyopia
gray hairs speed by
dizzied by menopause —
motion, sickness
rapid changes kicking
out the support
from under her
she has a stand to take
but cannot make it
she’s fallen & can’t get up
it’s too far down too fast
she needs to rest —
here she sits — still
nauseous, unsteady
invisible, irrelevant
dried-up and empty
no map, and broken
compass — vulnerable
existing inside out
with seams showing —
tired, thready, torn
—Terri Guillemets
All these years
I thought ‘barren’
meant of the womb —
but now my body
has threatened me
with menopause
and I realize it
means of the heart.
—Terri Guillemets
the blur of yellow, orange, red leaves
the blur of gray hair
the blur of occupied hours
the blur of dying dreams
—Terri Guillemets
Time is as Sand
Flesh is as glass
Sand quick is Run
Life soon doth pass.
—Author Unknown—
public domain image, undated
source: wellcomecollection.org
Okay — I give in — I accept you — Middle Age
I am tired — I want to sit down — unrushed —
to read — and drink hot tea — and — Breathe
the number of years behind me — and ahead of me —
no longer concern me — mathematically or emotionally
I have come to rest in the sturdy arms of the Present —
where Time has been waiting for me — my whole Life
—Terri Guillemets
Somehow, I got old
before really learning to be young
the old in my bones is calcified
the young in my soul is still growing
—Terri Guillemets
Now that I’m over the hill
I can see it’s just made of
skeletons of dead monsters
that were never really there.
But that past is no less high
and no less there, and I am
no less on the other side of it.
—Terri Guillemets
my youth is caked over
with heartache and pains
regrets and inflammations
and sudden calcifications
of ligaments and spirit
not-bothers and defeats
that went to my head
and bruises that take
too long to heal
cracked teeth and
why-tries and i’m-tireds
that which galloped
now rolls in ruts
my blonde has passed
to mousy and gray —
everyone i know
looks tired and frayed
sagging from the weight
of time and overbusy
and too much stuff
in too-big houses —
it’s too much life
and too little living —
no vitamines will fix this
—Terri Guillemets
At a certain point, some of us just sit down and watch the rest of our
Don’t let it happen to you!
—Terri Guillemets
How like a lovely autumn morning,
serene middle age —
a sanctuary of mind, a chapel;
the age of faith on a deep foundation,
and the age of reason;
silver fellowships, libraries and deep reflection,
wine, liberty, a milder manifestation of the soul;
brilliance upon our lips, more profound, subtle;
the rich flame of the good life, how sweet —
listening to the murmur of change
—Terri Guillemets
blackout poetry created from Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929, Grafton paperback, 1977,