अ लुच्क्य वोमन

A lucky woman [with apologies to pamela redmond satran]

A lucky woman can earn enough money of her own –
neither inherited nor won in the lottery nor stolen from a previous spouse –
so her husband is sure she stays because she wants to, & not
because she needs to. And if she is lucky, she doesn’t earn enough
to suspect her husband of sticking around because he’s lazy, & found
a comfortable lifestyle niche.

if she is lucky in her life, a woman will have
an employer of such integrity & a lover so unforgettable that forever after
she considers thoughtfully every stitch she’ll choose to wear in any situation
for her own sake & the person she knows she is. If she did not have the perfect
boyfriend or the incomparable boss, she is lucky to have observed this &
learned on her own. If she's lucky, a woman lives out her youthful fancies
while she is still young & moves on, outliving them. If she is lucky, she will have enough left of her mind to remember it all—the beauty & the pain—when she is old
& the wisdom to not tell what is best left to rest.

If she is lucky, her mother will leave her a lace dress that they both could wear,
& her father, a set of tools they both could have used.
If she is lucky, she can build herself a beautiful piece of furniture
both her parents would have admired. & if she did not have those parents,
she is lucky not to obsess over it. If she is lucky, a woman collects
dishes to serve extraordinary foods for all kinds of people, from waterford crystal,
bone china, indigenous ceramics, diverse and unique, & goodwill serving spoons
with a heart thrilled to offer them. If she is lucky, A woman always has enough
to feed her children without selling her own bones.
If she is lucky, a woman will have all
the beautiful stemware she wants whether received as gifts, secondhand,
or purchased at personal sacrifice & luckier still
if she doesn’t mind not having them.
If she is lucky, a woman will have recipes from generations & family & countries round the world & happy memories of all the times she prepared them
for guests who felt lucky to enjoy them. A lucky woman’s inheritance
was never destroyed in a firefight, a pogram, a pillaging or an ugly divorce.
A lucky woman knows herself & loves others freely,
Knows it is better to love what you have than to get what you want.
Doesn’t pretend to know her own destiny or that of anyone else.
A lucky woman knows in her bones that to love
Means losing herself
To something that is greater than everything.
A lucky woman has the guts & means to quit a job,
Leave an abuser,
Speak truth to power & wisdom to a friend in trouble whether or not
A bond proves fragile
or unbreakable
A lucky woman knows when to try harder
& when to walk away, sometimes forever.
A lucky woman knows she’ll never change
The length of her legs, the size of her feet, or the history of her family
--including all her own mistakes.
A lucky woman knows it is still ok to cry alone but outgrows the need for sympathy,
remembers always that moments of joy will always punctuate even the hardest times
good humor can kill the sourest poison, & that at the end of the day,
all the whispering drunks
were right after all: it’s never too late
to have a happy childhood.

A lucky woman knows that love's the only thing
Worth everything, unpoisons the well, decontaminates the bed,
renews the garden, & has learned to distinguish the yearning
from the giving. She knows the only human failure bottom line
is after all the failure to love, despite the gains & losses.
A lucky woman knows how to live alone... & how to share.
A lucky woman knows whom she can trust,
whom she shouldn't, and that taking it personally is sheer egotism.
A lucky woman knows where to go -- a brokenhearted best friend's kitchen table
a lonely inn in the woods, a streetside bistro in a busy neighborhood,
or behind the counter serving Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinner
to homeless sick folks
when her own soul needs soothing.

A woman knows she can never really learn the limits of her own capacity
But keeps trying to grow it bigger by making happiness for those around her
Remembering how lucky one is just to be
An ordinary woman, day by day, month by month,
Year by year...