In these last years of single-digit countdown,
I am settling into the natural progression of things.

When young and innocent in the matter of mortality,
I delighted in life and customs of the past viewed
in Persian miniatures, Vermeer interiors, Monet gardens.

Visited London antiquarians, leaving with Coleridge, 
gold leafed and leather bound, dated 1830. Browsed 
antiques fairs, shopped estate sales; a Dutch seaman’s 
etched brass snuffbox rests on my coffee table
near a Victorian desk and tiles
from an ancient Chinese Buddhist temple.

Not thinking of my own migration, I felt akin to those 
who had gone before as I climbed worn marble steps
to Victor Hugo’s apartment in the place de Vosges; strolled 
in the agora where Socrates and Plato talked philosophy,
and now, closer to home,

walking on ridged chert that was once ocean floor
on a path bordered by horsetail, ancient fern old as dinosaurs, 
I am comforted by the timeless notion
that nothing in nature is lost,
and whether here or not—
a part of me resides in all I have seen and touched.