Living With Grace

By Marcella Leff

Physically I’m not what I was, but it’s my body.

It moves slower now. That’s the work of time.

I speak less often, but I still have a voice.

low, steady, full of memory.

I’ve lived long enough to know what grace

feels like: not loud, not showy, not alone.

They say the old are always alone

but I am crowded with lives inside this body-

lovers, children, storms, and grace

that came unbidden, like mercy through time.

I do not mourn what’s gone. Memory

is not a wound- it’s a voice.

And I still have a voice.

It’s not soft. It’s not alone.

It’s stitched with the gold of memory,

with the stubborn pulse of a body

that has danced, wept, and waited out time

with nothing but breath and grace.

I have earned this grace.

I have shaped it with voice

and silence, with the long labor of time.

I have learned to be alone

without being lonely, to love this body

as a keeper of memory.

Let them call it fading- this memory.

Let them call it loss. I call it grace.

I call it the map etched into my body,

the echo chamber of voice

that sings even when I’m alone,

that sings even against time.

I’ve watched the years twist through time.

Those fragments stitched into memory.

I’ve stood in quiet rooms and felt completely alone.

Still, I’ve been met, again by grace,

by the sound of my own unshaken voice,

by the strength that still lives in this body.

I am still here- I move with time, held by grace.

I carry what lasts: the shape of memory, the sound of voice.

I am not afraid to stand alone. I belong to this body.

By Marcella Leff