I Won't Need Much

She sits in her shop with her tea and a book
And she waits for a patron to step in and look
At the friends she's collected and bound up and kept,
Undoing the damage done by the inept.

Each day is the same; her shop opens at eight.
She takes dinner at five, and she never stays late.
Her cat sheds all over her one beaten chair.
As she watches her programs he bats at her hair.

This gentle life was not all that she wanted
When the world was her oyster and she was not haunted
By mere ghosts of dreams she has long since laid by,
Bold desires for her fame to be writ on the sky.

She aspired, long ago, to be one of the few
Whose offerings to art were acclaimed as true,
To be known by the learned as one of their best,
To become the unchallenged, the measure, the test

By which all who someday would follow could prove
Their worth. But now she just needs her cat to move
Off the chair where she rests from a quiet shop day
And rubs fingers on temples beginning to gray.

Her dreams came to little. It bothers her less.
More than fame or great fortune, she found happiness
In a cup of hot tea, with a book in her hands,
In her corner with everything she understands.