Timeless Age

• Mia Spiteri, Grade 9, Santa Maria College -
• Poetry
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Write Along 2018' competition

A portrait, etched with soft wrinkles and imperfections,
Quietly whispering the stories of age and wisdom,
Thick glasses reflecting the kind, bright eyes that lay between delicate lashes,
A silky voice that speaks of rich, fluent Italian, and segmented broken pieces of foreign tongue,
Saddened by time yet glows in light, brightened by day, soon seized by night,
Focus slowly ebbing away, flowing scars that too recede today,
She sits and waits for day to pass, leaning back, with lips to glass,
Her dog who sits just by the fire, waiting for languid eyes to tire,
Wait together in the lounge, with crackling flames and silent sound,
Her frail hands, intertwined by subdued fingers,
As vantage shifts, her shadow still lingers,
Within closed cupboards lie albums of dust, memories of youth and faces of trust,
Peering through the lace of curtains, vivid imagery of life uncertain, watching as the world goes by,
Smiling wide from eye to eye, speaking words echoed through time, of voices not yet known to mine,
“When I was younger, I used to be beautiful.”