TOO SOON, SHE GROWS OLD

It's time she begins:
Her thoughts may someday cloud, her vision blurs:
She will grow old.

It's time: she must now begin to compile the story
Of her life.

She must realize the person she has become,
Has changed from a child, to an adult with a new,
And altogether different, point of view.

It's time that pursues her, relentlessly,
That makes her peer over her shoulder.
She must hurry: this sudden insight may soon be gone.

Too soon, she will be left, pen in hand,
With a lamp, scorched and blackened by Father Time,
Who beckons,
Who haunts her words and innermost thoughts.

Too soon, she grows old.