This is what 75 looks like.

My wonderful friend Hilda Welch celebrated her 75th birthday tonight, dancing and hugging, laughing and cavorting among over a hundred guests. I took about two hundred pictures: of the guests, the dancing, the eating, the array of pictures of Hilda in all the phases of her life, and a few young people bent over their electronic gadgets. I got some lovely pictures of Hilda dancing affectionately with her husband, but my favorite of her, which I think catches her joyful abandon, is this one.  She is a lifelong social activist and was a professor of early childhood education before she retired and turned her attention to writing, gardening, and community-building. Hilda is a member of my writing group, and in honor of her birthday, here is one of her poems that I very much love. She would hasten to say, "It's just a draft. It's not finished. This isn't the final version." It's not a joyful poem, but it is one I particularly love.

Transpire
by Hilda Welch

With empty hands we sat and watched her
sleep beyond our reach.

Beyond our reach we matched the cycles
of our breath to hers, stroked her fragile face, held

her hands, soothed back white waved hair. Her skin
became translucent cream; eyes unseeing, sockets

dark, she stayed remote. The bony structure of her face
emerged and still we sat and breathed together.

Breathed together memories of crocheted blankets
on our beds, scattered baseball charts, lesson plans,
fatted flaky pie crusts, large rings on large hands,
water colors with diminished dexterity. Left her only

when we needed sleep, left her to the nurses
of her night till they summoned from our sleep

her breathing has changed. Returned
in darkness to stand so still, to stand so still

we heard her breath grow cold.