Perspective

A birthday poem. For me. By me.

Perspective
Juliana Spink Mills, March 2021

The older I get
the less I know
about myself.
My certainties
are shaken loose,
washed clean and clear
by the pitter-patter rain
of days, and months, and
years gone by.

I find new things about
myself, every day.
Blooming from within;
spring bulbs
rising above the debris
of last autumn's leaves,
shedding layers
as the river birch sheds
paper-thin slivers of bark.

Time brings wisdom,
they say.
Time is knowledge.
But time is, above all, freedom
to set aside that
which others have
accidentally imposed upon me
in the way they perceive
how I exist.

As the years wash against me
like waves on a beach,
I find I do not need
other people to define me
as I once did.
Time has bought me
space and perspective,
and now I begin to see myself
for who I am.