for Jan, on her birthday one year
A birth day
What is it?
A day.
A day among many
other days.
One day in a long,
long string of days
organized and sorted into
weeks and months and
years which turn into decades.
But it’s the birth day
that brings the year.
It marks the start
but also the passing
of what has been.
The birth day opens
a new beginning
another step; a marker,
a mile-post along a road
that lets you know
how far you have come but
not how far you are going
for
there is no map
there is no global positioning system
for living.
So, these years add up and
they pile on top of each other in layers of joy and stacks of tears;
unruly mounds of hopes and fears; story upon story of life.
The children, the grandchildren
the holidays, the houses
the pets, the gardens, the trips
the churches, the shows, the art,
the folk, the folk-art and
the artisans.
Common themes, yes even
you might say, concurrent themes.
Concurrent sentences for the
joys and crimes of love and passion with mitigating and complicating circumstances.
For you,
it comes to the persons;
the most essential part for you
in all the decades of your life,
the part that holds it all up
and folds it together
is
your friends.
And so,
we are here tonight
to celebrate your birthday;
to mark this day among
so many others
and
to mark these friendships
like no others the
world has ever seen.
Happy Birth Day.
No Comments