On the Eve of my Twenty-Fifth Birthday

On the Eve of my Twenty-Fifth Birthday
for Frida Kahlo
Spring 2017

At this end of one quarter century,
I could easily say I've achieved
Nothing of note and still little of merit;
Thinking: Frida began to paint at nineteen
And sold her first piece at twenty-two.
Not envious of that terrible crash or her
Long months and months of immobility,
I still could long for an unbroken length
Of time to really get some writing done.
But haven't I had those twenty-five years?
A broken column of a spine is a tragedy,
And her broken marriage, not my idle pen
Or paltry attitude. If Frida could paint
Her own shattered bones till the end,
How hard could it be, now, to begin?