It seems we grow older you and I ...
The face in the glass is at odds
with your memory and my aspirations.
A coarser sister mimics by works, and
apprehends my actions.
She demands time, this relative,
her landscape is seasonal and more various
in contour promising less
yet exacting more
from the table of experience.

She is bolder less apt to start
at beasts in the hedges,
determined to have her day
first when her eye is keenest
and her tools sharpest, she sets forth
to make monuments out of my passing
fancies.  Ordering her actions
trusting her choices and protecting her interests.

This sister knows my routes and reasons
and will have none of them.
She wants beauty by the yard
Sweet smelling and free
from compromise.

Elizabeth Tate