How Do You Measure

How would you like to measure your life?

By the Numbers

by Rosemerry Tromer

Then let me measure my life

not in days, not in years,

but in how many sunflowers

grew in my gardens

and how many times

I stopped to notice

how beautiful they were.

Let me measure my life

in lines of poems

that slipped me

more deeply into the world

and in cups of earl gray tea.

Let me grow old

on belly laughs.

Let me know my true age

in kisses. And though

it is a finite number,

let me lose count.

In hug years,

let me be ancient.

In first years,

let me always be young.

And let me measure my life

in songs that insisted I sing them.

May it equal the number of times

they were sung.

~ Photo by Mia Sakrani on Unsplash