The Flame Of The Elder

They dismiss our hard earned wisdom

As if time has not shaped us

As if we were dust on the windowsill

Not the sacred ash of a thousand fires survived

We are not the maiden
Not the mother in full bloom
We are the ember
The coal that still burns
The heat that warms

Like a mature wise tree
We do not chase the sun
We grow inward
Deepening
And remembering

The middle of our life is an initiation

Not through shrinking or smoothing

Not through Botox and fillers

But in the death of the old

And the promise of the new

This body

Creased, curved, carved -

Is not in decay 

But is ripening 

As we remember

Reverence for the elder feminine
Is not found in youth
But in the way she holds silence
The way she no longer seeks approval

We are not fading
We are refining
We are becoming
The Elder flame 

By Tanya Cameron