Almost Eighteen

It isn’t easy being almost-eighteen

When other pastures are fairer and greener

Than the row that you were given to hoe

It isn’t easy

Being almost-eighteen…

I know

It isn’t easy being almost-eighteen

So many unknowns remaining to be seen

So many doors all seemly barred

So many decisions

And all of them

Hard

It isn’t easy being almost-eighteen

Uncertain of how far or how fearless to dream

As fantasy and reality

Wage debate

Each hovering beyond

The garden gate

It isn’t easy being almost-eighteen

Realizing that life is not ‘but a dream’

And rowing your boat against life’s stiff tide

Is anything but

A ‘merrily, merrily’

Ride

But darling, I’m not sure if any of us really ‘knows’

One foot then the other, that’s the way life goes

No one can see

The next line, the next page

And life is a faith-leap

No matter our age

…and darling, it isn’t easy being forty-six

Swiftly, so swiftly life’s impatient clock ticks

I hold and I reach, I trust and I pray

I learn while I teach

and feel you slipping

away

It isn’t easy, so all we can do

Is ask God day by day to gently lead us through

Whether we are eighteen

Or forty-five

Time is a hungry foe that licks

Away our lives

© Janet Martin