The visit of the young girls from the Spence school was a great pleasure as anticipated. Their poetry is well thought out, serious, the girls are very bright and absolutely delightful.

They brought a photographer along who was taking pictures all around the table showing interplay between the young girls and us oldsters and we were given copies of several such shots. One of these pictures showed a hand holding one of their poems. Just a hand which I immediately recognized as my left hand, holding my neighbors poem called “Atlas Shoulders the Vault of Night”.

I immediately asked myself, why did they choose my hand, and the answer came quickly and devastatingly. ‘This is the hand of a very, very old person. Probably the oldest in the room!

Since I very rarely think of myself as a very old woman, with one foot in the grave, it gave me a severe jolt, from which I have not quite recovered.
It has brought me back to reality. I am not sure how to deal with it.



©Gerta Freeman - December 9, 2009