A poem from the point of view of someone who's been around for a while, that still feels relevant to anybody who's seen a bit: “The Wonder of Having Lived Here a Long Time” by John Koethe.
“It feels like such a miracle, this life”—I wrote that in a poem
Six years ago and I repeat it now. I’ve no idea what other people feel
As they get old, but I feel nothing but amazement, not at what I am,
Which is commonplace and ordinary, but that I am and have a life at all,
The private one of these appearances beyond the reach of physics.
Though they take the form of time, they’re really nothing but myself,
The pages of a narrative that led the way from childhood to here
That no one gets to read unless they want to, pausing to look in the window
Of the joke shop on Broadway on the way to the library, or the one on F Street
Next door to the Hollywood Burlesque. Not to mention Tempest Storm.