GOD BLESS ALL WHO SAIL IN THEMSELVES TODAY AND THAT A BIRTHDAY DESCENDS UPON!



!!!!!!!HOPPY BIRD DAY!!!!!!!

Just shy of
almost 21 inches high

she perches on my arm
sobs into my shirt cuff.

Her 4th birthday looms large
for her

& us
...the big 04!

She cries she doesn't
want to grow old & die!

Fears her birthday as
the Grim Reaper himself

calling
in person.

"Birthdays..." I console her
are just like breathing

in&out
stop 'em & - you're gone!

You don't have birthdays then
no more you!

Birthdays are how you
keep making you

happen!

My little eyass
all tears & snot

brightens up at this
sniffs & sniffles.

I tell her
you are the sky

all endless & blue

time the wings
that lets you fly.

Death, snickers
standing by my shoulder

"Ahhh...ya old haggard ya
that's a nice pretty lie

to dry
a nestling's tears."

I watch her fly
into the endless blue

of her
self.

Smile as she
embraces her now.

I hop on one
leg hoppty hop.

"HOPPY BIRD DAY!"
I shout

against the glare
of time and sun.

She squeals
excited now

as to the who
she is

going to
be

Both of us
hopping down

the path together.



And in particular for my little Miss Tilly who in the long long ago was my especial little monkey!

*

This is my favourite photo from our Indian trip in January to attend the New Delhi Poetry Festival. It is on the road to the Taj Mahal and the mist and the monkeys won my heart. The Taj itself only put in a shy appearance 4 hours later in a barely there kinda way.

Next I used it as my birthday greetings for facebook friends....

HAVE A HOPPY BIRD DAY...OR ELSE...WE SEND DE MONKEYS AROUND!

Then it became the cover of our new The 1000 Monkeys aka Pop Up PoetryPop Up Poetry Anthology .

People laughed at the corruption of HAPPY BIRTH DAY TO YOU into HOPPY BIRD DAY TWO EWE.

So yesterday I wrote the poem to explain why I always say HOPPY BIRD DAY and I've now tied that to the birthday photo....so. . .there ya go!