It’s a good time in your life
he said, to think about these things
(when I confided what I had been pondering)

Like the effect of being handed stuff
you never worked for,
but are assured that you deserve,
that somehow
the hoops you jumped through
and the mantle you assumed
should be enough
to buy you all those things
and make you worthy

What is the real price
for learning to be real?
How did the people who achieved it
come upon it?
These things I start to fathom
from walking on the land
and building fires
and fetching water.
But there is so much more –
enough to occupy my days
for now, and for as far as I can see.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2021