The Winter Of My Life Poem by Almedia Knight-Oliver

I spring to life in springs; bask in summer’s golden suns
Pick the ripest bananas, fearing I won’t last until the green ones ripen.
In the mode of autumn life, put myself to sleep, and sleep through fall
With vitals parts opened and ready to start the following season

Winter days are getting shorter and darker,
And earth unconsciously rounds the sun
I’m wrapped in wintertime blanket of sadness,
Trying to get settled for a long winter nap, while my mind
Can’t cease producing random thoughts of wrinkles in my life:
Youth, adulthood, and middle age have made their rounds
Old age grabbed me by surprise- yet I’m making baby steps from
the darkness into light.

My mind begins orbiting about the years of my carefree youth:
I Rolled snow into a snowman-this white piled upon my head is not the same.
Another thought circles the distant time of playing-house outside- almost
Like the real rustic home my Momma created inside:
Made her cornbread from scratch cooked atop a woodstove
(“Jiffy” was not that far back) : and drank Kool-Aid from chipped,
Handle-Less cups from, one of the white folks as partial pay for labor
As a child, I picked wild flowers on green rolling hills of the south
Gleaned and placed them in a mason jar
Desiring to smooth Momma’s ubiquitous frowns, instead left them to be ironed.

I’m one of the old folk who have awaken and, am prepared for the afterlife-
Now don’t misunderstand me!
I’m not rushing to leave the only life known to me:
walking along the Water’s edge of the beach
Enjoying the texture of every grain of sand that greets my feet
A chorus echoing in harmony through the air, of children
Building sand castles with glee
Watching evening suns sinking into golden horizons, like
The many years lived, and am still blessed with the ease of life
Breathing in only the things that serves me and out that which do not

I bought a red rose today knowing, this same rose could be dead tomorrow
I’ll wear the sweet fragrance of today: and the fragrance will be gone tomorrow…



May 4,2014