Self-Portrait

November 04, 2009 - 07:53 AM


Self-Portrait
by Mary Oliver
I wish I was twenty and in love with life and still full of beans. Onward, old legs! There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side the roses are blooming and finding their labor no adversity to the spirit. Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea shining like a song, like a body I want to touch though I'm not twenty and won't be again but ah! seventy.
And still in love with life. And still full of beans.
"Self-Portrait" by Mary Oliver, from Red Bird. © Beacon Press, 2008