wearing these colors

ON TURNING SIXTY

Do you remember when it was
people stopped calling you
young lady and you became
just ma'am or madam?
Around the same time it became
too much trouble to go out?

These days I tell my kids
not to do things I'd begun doing
well before I was their age,
and yard work once a torture
is now a fine escape.

There is a chain saw in the forest
taking out old trees. Once
I would have tried to stop them,
now I enjoy the opened space.

John Enright