My beloved Kent is 83 today. Here's what I wrote to him:

     Saying Goodbye To Eighty-Two
We're lying here. It’s nine p.m.  Nine p.m. exactly!
Three more hours to eighty-three.
Do you feel different?
Much less ignorant than yesterday?
Feel that years have run away?
Or maybe you don’t mind
The wrinkles that you find?
Don’t care that hair is thinner
Or that whether it is there
Or not.
Three more hours.
In the morning I’ll give you a poem I’ve framed.
I’ll let you come and give me breakfast.
Everything will be the same
Except that you are one year older.
Once again, we are
Three years, three months apart.
Dear heart,
A happy wish for years to give
You health and vigour.
Years to live twenty years longer -
Maybe twenty-four years more.
Say goodbye to eighty-two
And I will say, “Sweet dreams” to you.
You’re tired and I’m inspired
So I’ll wait until tomorrow
Till you read this.
Here’s a goodnight kiss:
(****, ****)

*
"****, ****" means kisses in Swedish
  Happy, Happy Eighty-Third
Are you really eighty-three today?
In weighing time, the climb of time
It seems a fancy fantasy.  
As if not many moments past have passed,
And last year I was forty-eight or so,
You forty-four or five, the glow
Of youth still in our faces,
Space of time not closed.
Who knows how long the years are likely?
Time’s been good to you and me:
incredibly, we live like royalty
And lovingly, to boot.
We’ve rooted out the key to what
A  good relationship should be.
You’ve made me happy,
And so, in return, I wish you too,
This final word:
A HAPPY, HAPPY EIGHTY-THIRD!
Happy,Happy Eighty-Third 2.8.2021BirthdayBook; LoveRelationships; ArleneNover Corwi