For my sister on turning 50

For my sister on her 50th birthday.

Turning Fifty
Judith Wright

"Having known war and peace
and loss and finding
I drink my coffee and wait
for the sun to rise.

With kitchen swept, cat fed,
the day still quiet,
I taste my fifty years
here in the cup.

Outside the green birds come
for bread and water.
Their wings wait for the sun
to show their colours.

I'll show my colours too.
Though we've polluted
even this air I breathe
and spoiled green earth;

though, granted life or death,
death's what we're choosing
and though these years we live
scar flesh and mind,

still as the sun comes up
bearing my birthday,
having met time and love
I raise my cup-

dark, bitter, neutral,clean,
sober as morning-
to all I have seen and know-
to this new sun"