1 hour ago
Trying to do something special for my wife's 60th birthday, as if that isn't obvious. I am going to read it before a good number of people so putting it out there to get a general read. Appreciate any and all comments.
A Few Days Before Your Birthday
On the patio it’s spring;
your 60th year.
I hear the call, no,
the chorus of the spring peeper,
Pseudacris crucifer, how they sing--
the give and take of their eager song
and then the bark of a distant fox
to mark their own beginning
to this symphony, a tune too familiar,
somehow always new
against the memory of another year.
In this moment, I see
where, soon, the tent will rise, white
against the bright sky,
guests will arrive with their gifts
of friendship dressed in the glitter
of their best backyard finery
and there will be singing and a cake
whose candles you might mistake
for a funeral pyre, tho’ blown out with ease,
death denied with a breath, let it burn---
I say, what better measure of your life
than the glow of such faces as these
held in the light of your years?
Here we are in celebration
from 6:30pm to whenever.
My birthday wish,
as the shadows of day spill into night,
you celebrate each moment to forever.
A Few Days Before Your Birthday
On the patio it’s spring;
your 60th year.
I hear the call, no,
the chorus of the spring peeper,
Pseudacris crucifer, how they sing--
the give and take of their eager song
and then the bark of a distant fox
to mark their own beginning
to this symphony, a tune too familiar,
somehow always new
against the memory of another year.
In this moment, I see
where, soon, the tent will rise, white
against the bright sky,
guests will arrive with their gifts
of friendship dressed in the glitter
of their best backyard finery
and there will be singing and a cake
whose candles you might mistake
for a funeral pyre, tho’ blown out with ease,
death denied with a breath, let it burn---
I say, what better measure of your life
than the glow of such faces as these
held in the light of your years?
Here we are in celebration
from 6:30pm to whenever.
My birthday wish,
as the shadows of day spill into night,
you celebrate each moment to forever.