This old woman,
she must be the earth
or returning there.
The beauty of the arms of an old woman
is geography,
rain, wind and time
blown across the land of a body.
She could choose to sleep curled and skinny
on the side of the hidden road
of a safe country.
The world will be different
when she wakes because
history falls every moment.
She, who has watched the same cup of every chipped day
fill and empty may still sing
and hold the eagle plume in a shaking hand.
This is not a lotus-eating world,
but even in sharpness or emptiness or pain
there she finds beauty.
It is a world of steeped tea,
blue-veined waters all
outside a house
where the doors are open,
or someone to pass through
or go out.