Old Age Poem by Lillian Susan Thomas

The more wind-worn,
life-torn a person becomes,
the more seams appear,
fissures divide
the whole skin tone of hope.
With many exceptions
cutting deep in trust,
with losses leaving notches
that widen in time to crevices,
they still smile, the old ones,
though it breaks the face
from ear to ear.

Then how can it be...
stones in a river
are smoothed the more moved?
Grit polishes all unevenness
in a millennium or two, I guess.