John Grey

She’s to be found most days
sitting on the porch
of her house on the hill,
looking down at the neighborhood.

She’s in her late seventies.
Her long, gray hair is waist-length,
She’s dressed in a floral blouse
and faded jeans.
And, surrounding her,
is a horde of a dozen mewing cats.

“Aging hippy,” folks call her.
“Smoked so much pot when 
she was young,” they say,
“she’s never come down 
from that high.”

She has one daughter 
who looks in on her occasionally
and another she hasn’t heard from
in many years.

The house is the family home,
an old Victorian she moved back into 
in her thirties.
Her brother wants to sell the place,
put her into a small apartment.

Her resistance is silence,
and time spent sitting on that porch,
looking down at the neighborhood,
in the company of those cats.

Ancient hippies are freely gossiped about.
But they’re not so easy to move.