17 September 2014

Nancy's Birthday

How now to handle birthdays,
There is no precedence;
To honor and do justice
With minimum pretense.
“No gifts,” has been your message.
“Possessions are a curse.
Happy would I be to get
One more of your light verse.”
How did I don this mantle,
Create the expectation,
That family members hold me to?
Or is it preservation
Of our father’s penchant
For seasonal longhand?
(Though I don’t recall him having
To produce it on demand).
How far it is we’ve come
From his hectograph productions
To megabytes ephemeral
Requiring self-construction.
(My old printer he is ailing
With color never mastered;
Alas where may this ‘workhorse’
Be put out to pasture?)
Just look at how I ramble
As if I had the time
To write so much preamble
And force it all to rhyme.
Should not this after all
Be focused on my sister
And come around to saying
How much it is I miss her?
And how I do regret,
The time I traveled home,
That, as it was, she happened
To be domiciled in Rome.
I sought not to resent,
Nor keep a jealous heart,
Keeping company with addicts,
Versus centuries of art.
We all could use a halo,
Strike Raphaelesque pose,
Till the canvas with our image
Begins to decompose.
But let me not discourage
With metaphoric tongue
This special day when you do turn
Fifty-six years young!
Love, Jeffry

9/17/14