I imagine myself in time looking back on myself -

this self, this morning,

drinking her coffee on the first day of a new year

and once again almost unable to move her pen through the iron air.

Perplexed by my life as Midas was in his world of sudden metal,

surprised that it was not as he'd expected, what he had asked.

And that other self, who watches me from a distance of decades.

what will she say? Will she look at me with hatred or with compassion,

I whose choices made her what she will be?

June Hirshfield After (2006 Bloodaxe Books: p.41)