MY BIGGEST WORRY by Carolyn Chilton Casas

 

My Biggest Worry

 

            —The good not done, the love not given, time

            torn off unused—        Philip Larkin, “Aubade”

 

            My apologies to time for all the world I overlooked each second.

                                                Wislawa Szymborska, “Under One Small Star”

 

What do I most fear?

It used to be death,

not because I was afraid

of dying, but when my children

were young, and I wanted 

to show them the world.

 

Now, I’ve lived enough

to know with shattering clarity

things as they are today

will not always be.

I want to soak it all in, 

every moment

of my precious life.

 

My husband’s sweet face

as we sit talking at the table,

my children when they tell me

their secrets, my mother’s fine hair

pulled into a tiny golden ponytail.

 

I remember.  I am present 

for a few minutes. 

I forget.  I remind myself again.

 

So, I’d say it’s a worry

of regretting someday

that I didn’t appreciate 

or notice enough—

a person, a moment, a place, 

anything really,

as much as I should or could have

at this very moment in time.

 

Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki Master and teacher. Her favorite themes for writing are: healing, wellness, awareness, and the spiritual journey. Carolyn's articles and poems have appeared in Energy, Mujer Holística, Odyssey, Reiki News Magazine, The Art of Healing and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Instagram at mindfulpoet_ or in her debut collection of poems titled Our Shared Breath.

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