Tag Archives: birthdays

For Starlight Born with Robbie Burns

Although some celebrate today
the Scotsman’s favorite bard,
my day is elsewise occupied
and I shall find it hard

to think of he whose “Auld Lang Syne”
will ring out through the night.
For this day someone else was born
who gives my life delight.

My first, my last, my everything,
my better half, by far,
the truest friend I’ve ever had:
my one and only Star.

So Robbie Burns, I wish ye well
there under heath and sod;
You’ve given me much, I admit,
to think on man and God.

But today is for goddesses,
and I’ve one in the flesh;
were you alive, it’s likely you
would feel the same, I guess.

A toast to verse, and tuneful speech,
to poets at their rest,
and to the muses such as mine
who give all life their zest.

25 JAN 2005

For Sondra (Starlight Dances)

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On Reaching Forty in a Week

In a week I will be forty. If my mother’s right
it’s time to get my act together and find more delight
in doing what needs to be done to build something to show
for two score spent in dissipation watching the grass grow.

For forty years I’ve wandered, aimless (if you read my press)
and how I managed to survive is anybody’s guess;
but here I am an older man with little put aside
for rainy days and the malaise built up like muck inside.

And even though my mother (bless her and her dreams for me)
is likely to deny it or at best, just disagree,
the course for me is still unset, with mountains still to climb,
and wild paths yet to ramble left untraveled all this time.

I could have gone a different route, sought greater wealth and fame,
but had I come another path I would not be the same.
The stars are not much different in the sky as they were then;
they can be used to form new paths, not just trace might have beens.

And I have what I want, right now, though some would call it less
that what it should be. I seek out a greater happiness.
If I should last for forty more, undoubtedly, I’ll find
that my boat will at last reach shore — just where, I do not mind.

For ports and inns and treasure troves on wild, uncharted lands,
I’m sure will fade from memory like dry dust in my hands.
It’s only knowing who you are that makes a difference;
and taking forty years to learn that through experience

instead of scanning manuals, taking courses, reading signs,
has built a life worth living. And the best part? It is mine.
So forty comes and forty goes — it seems a lot of days.
All that was bad was my own fault, for good, I must give praise

to forces I’ve just glimpsed upon this often lonely trail,
that oft appear as wisps of smoke not some great holy grail.
I hope just this: the time to come, what’s left to me this round,
won’t seem like unimportant drivel, or just mumbled sound.

But forty’s just a number; it does not mean all that much:
some measure of maturity to lean on, like a crutch,
or use to force my issues down some young and eager throats
who’ve just started their seeking and still think they must take notes.

So I will taste of forty (a respectable old port)
and try to make the next four decades of a different sort.
I couldn’t do the same again, so what’s the point to try?
I’ll take each new day as it comes, and get there, by and by.

26 DEC 2004

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The Other Shoe Drops

My mother, who turns seventy next year,
four days from now is driving from LA,
alone across almost two thousand miles
(she plans between ten and twelve miles a day)

to visit us in New Orleans — she says,
for just a day or so; and then, she’s off
towards the north. Next stop is Tennessee.
My younger sister’s been there just two months

and barely settled in; she moved away
to close the West Coast chapter of her life.
Of course, that book includes my brothers and my mom.
I understand her motivation well,
although to mom it’s not so cut and dry.

She wonders what would cause someone to split
away from hearth and home, leaving behind
the everything your life has ever been
in search of something else – something else real.

But she and Dad did much the same thing:
they put a state, at first, between their life
and where they came from, cutting free the past.
It worked for about seven years or so.

And then they were dragged back into the fold,
or close enough to be within the web
of sibling politics and watchful eyes;
they tried to make a go of it, and failed.

Next, they tried the whole damn continent —
uprooting us from the dull, complacent life
that was in store if we stayed on the farm,
and ran three thousand miles, to Western shores.

The family back at home, in the Midwest
still wonders why they left, dissatisfied
with close-knit clan surrounding on all sides
and little opportunity for growth.

But it was dad that needed space, and change,
and his decision to break with the past.
Mom never spoke of it, but now, I think
she has regrets that they struck out alone.

And sis and I, the two like the old man,
have likewise flung ourselves out and away —
with breathing room to reconstruct our lives
in different ways, by rules that we define.

How could mom be surprised? Our exodus
was fated from the start. There was no force
of nature, blood or even divine will
that could have keep us California-bound.

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Birthday Wishes to an Attorney

In my youth I sought for truth, and studied law and sense
bringing to bear my youthful air, but no experience
and now, much later, perhaps fate, or some wild freak of chance
finds me still seeking, although creaking, in this lifetime’s dance.

The fire still smolders, though it’s older, and gives warmth and light
by which I cook, and sometimes look out to the stars at night
the world is full of so much bull, but beauty lurks there too
you find the clues, if you so choose, in everything you do.

12 AUG 2003

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Birthdays

Happy Birthday to Starlight Dances!

Things to do today:

Take Star out to dinner and thoroughly break our diet 🙂
Call Star’s mom and give her congratulations on having given birth to Star 🙂
Do all the dishes, laundry and even clean the bathroom and fold the towels 🙂
Be on my best behavior, as much as possible ;>
Oh let us not forget the spanking … he he he > ;P

for Starlight Dances

Sometimes it seems like the whole world conspires
against the enjoyment of simple things –
like the blend of colors in a warm fire’s
flame, or the smile that a warm morning brings

after a long week of bitter hard freeze.
True too, the long days and months of life
can seem like so much flutter in the breeze,
with stretches of time that hold only strife

and reminders of past glories and deeds.
But right now, we celebrate arrival
of a new incarnation, a true gift:

your spirit, a beautiful bloom that needs
only recognition for survival,
and if not born today, would have been missed.

25 JAN 2003

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Being Thirty Eight

Now that I am thirty eight (just this month)
it’s probably time I got my thing in
gear; or at least to some extent, figured
out what role it is I tried out for, since
it’s obvious at this point that the play
is into its second act, and it looks
like I got the part.

Not too sure right now
if it’s a walk-on or one of the leads,
but I seem to have a whole lot of lines
for somebody who’s just going to die off
in the middle of scene seven or eight.

It’s also not too clear whether this thing
is completely scripted as yet; feels like
a dress rehearsal at times, and then not.

Based on simple math, I can figure out
I’m not the suave young romantic rebel
who’s destined to lose his ideals en route
to some pie-in-the-sky notion of love;
also, the blocking leads me to believe
I’m not looking back and reflecting on
a span of years spent wasted in business
or watching my great beauty fade and dim.

So what’s my motivation, Strasberg?
My inner turmoil seems to be working
itself out; and angst is so hard to fake.

I worry that somewhere deep in Act Five
I’ll be dancing wild jigs across the lawn
and laughing. I’ll admit, not too worried.

It is a damn good part, no matter what.
And my co-stars are a dream to work with.

18 JAN 2003

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