Maturity

by Suzan Abrams

She stayed prominent in her ministrations and affections lest she be led to the docility of hearts. Grazed from a misfortune of spirit, she may have removed herself from the blight of indignity but that the puzzlement of life in its varied catastrophes continued to grip her. She moved willingly but happily into the webbed audacity that love demanded of entanglements. An uneasy truce prevailed in the disposition of the self. She held court with an everyday splendour, eager to mount her vision upright. She bottled up a straying distracted sight for an early wisdom. Her legs were trained for a steady course and she could only run forward...her head being sadly labelled as much too stiff for backward glances and recriminations of the past. Hindsight would be her memory's only gift and this too, from time to time, to summon with acute displeasure and warn of an old foe. Hindsight and an eagle-eyed endeavour for an icy patience, keen to hold her still.