Alexandra David-Neel (V2)

She edits her life from a room made dark
against a desert dropping summer sun.
A daring traveling Parisian adventurer,
ultimate princess turning toad with age--
snow drops of white in her hair, tiny fingers
thumb joints osteoarthritis
she corrects proofs at 100, pours whiskey,
pours over what she wrote
scribbles notes directed to the future,
applies for a new passport.
With this amount of macular degeneration,
near, monster of writers' approaches,
she wears no spectacles.
Her mind teeters between Himalayas,
distant Gobi Desert.
Running reason through her head for a living,
yet dancing with the youthful world of Cinderella,
she plunges deeper near death into Tibetan mysticism,
trekking across snow covered mountains to Lhasa, Tibet.
Nighttime rest, sleepy face, peeking out that window crack
into the nest, those quiet villages below
tasting a reality beyond her years.