When You're Eighty

I think you’ll be beautiful when you’re 80:

When you’ve been transfigured by decades of
Breathing the aroma of love and pain and the
Small melodramas of life,

When your hair has been washed white
And your delicate hands curl, exhausted from
Seizing the moment,

When your grey eyes deepen,
When your voice softens,
When your heart and brain reconcile,

And when I stoop with reverence
To place a warm kiss upon your wrinkled brow.

You are lovely now,
But I think you’ll be beautiful when you’re 80.