Poetry's Late Bloomer

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Lucille Broderson doesn't write brightly about wearing purple. Now age 87, shown above last year with her grandson, John, age 9, she faces death with unflinching vision and sharp verse: "It's OK, it's all right," she writes in her poem "The Lake Goes Quiet and Gray." The poet, who lives near the Twin Cities in St. Anthony, Minn., told age-beat reporter Kay Harvey of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, what her message to her children is: "It isn't terrible. You can die with dignity and grace. I hope the way I'm living is telling them that." In "Since I Began," reprinted on this page with permission, she takes stock of life's hard realities but also notices what continues to …