Dear one with the silver hair,

Your baby days are past, and all your children gone.
But you are not a shriveled husk, some dried nut whose life is done.
You wear white hair like a badge of glory.
Bravo! Only those who burned in the fire
have lived all the colors that merge into white.
How beautiful you are
even with wrinkles and sagging skin.
Each line is a story someone needs to hear.
Each fold of your neck hides a place where love begins.
Even if you still have devils, they cannot steal your show.
You know their weaknesses, and
You are alive in a way the young can never know.

Freed from the slavery of hormones
you are liberated for the last third of your life,
able to start remembering who you were before
the years when reproduction brought its strife.
That was you in your purest form back then, and now
you have circled back to the dreams that truly matter.
Be bold! Go back to school and learn what you love.
Get out and help the souls who tug at your heart.
Bring your joy to those whose joy has died.
You are powerful, you are limitless, you have time.
Like some brave frail bird you can soar above life
to the edge of infinity, free at last to be
and answer only to the calling of your heart.
Don’t hold back. Don’t be shy. There’s no time like now.
Jump, dear one, jump! Your wings are ready .