Age hides itself
until you need a new passport
or bump into a childhood friend.
Then the frantic effort
to find some familiar landmark
in that landscape:
eyes, mouth, smile;
digger life has shifted the earth
and you are lost.
Sometimes it's the voice
you remember;
its call from the depths.
Sometimes, in the eye,
turn of a mouth, you find
the key that was lost in the grass.
And now, face to face,
with the truth of your own age;
you must smile and lie.
