Birthday Ideas & Advice

Nicholas Gordon asked:

WILDERNESS IS ANYTHING BUT WILD

Wilderness is anything but wild.

It is an artifact of modern life.

Longing for innocence, we are beguiled,

Determined to re-virginize our wife.

Eons of humanity were there,

Resident in each ecology.

Nor can we go back further, for nowhere

Exist the plants and creatures we would see.

So we create what never was, a place

Set aside as a reserve for grace.

THE HAPPINESS I FEEL AT YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS

The happiness I feel at your achievements

Reflects the happiness you feel at mine.

Friends expand the pleasures of such moments,

As mine in yours, and yours in mine, combine.

The same when we look forward to our futures:

So much more unfolds when there are two!

Populating your proposed adventures

Gives me a joy that mine must give to you.

We’ve been through much, and will be through much more,

But traveling together is more fun.

Whatever life and love may have in store,

Two is always preferable to one.

Your graduation thus becomes my pleasure:

Your happiness is mine, a double treasure.

I LOVE YOUR COOL GREEN EYES AND LIGHT BROWN HAIR

I love your cool green eyes and light brown hair.

I love the way my fear faints at your touch.

I love the way I call you and you’re there,

Ready to take charge–but not too much!

I love the way you are a little boy

Needing me to kiss away all pain,

And then the jolt of automatic joy

When you say you love me yet again.

I love my anchor in a surging sea,

My partner winging through a darkened sky,

My pleasure-mate who loves to toy with me,

My mirror and my goal, my word, my eye.

I love the one who lets me live as two.

All this you are to me, and I to you.

I KNOW IT’S ONLY HALF A YEAR

I know it’s only half a year

That you will be away,

But it will feel far more than that

Each long and lonely day.

A day without a friend is like

A meadow turned to sand,

A garden turned to weeds and dust,

An ocean far from land.

Time enters a slow-motion zone,

Repeating endlessly

The tearful grimace of the heart

Till you return to me.

FATHERS NEED NOT FATHERS BE

Fathers need not fathers be.

All one needs to do is choose

To love for life, and that embrace,

Held long and hard, bestows the grace

Each craves. For all in time must lose,

Restored alone by memory.

So now it is with you and me.

JOY IS IN THE SIMPLE THINGS

Joy is in the simple things: touching,

Embracing, chattering on for hours about nothing,

Sure of your place within another’s heart.

Simple things: like coming home knowing

Exactly where the treasure lies; like being

At ease with what you do and who you are;

Needing what you already have; accepting,

Desiring what you have been given; feeling

The gratitude of someone who is loved;

Investing goodness instead of money; giving

For the pleasure of giving pleasure; seeing

Fortune come to take you in its arms.

All this joy is yours for the price of loving,

Not only well but long, days of willing,

Years and years of wise and patient love.

YOU FEEL THE FORTUNE OF YOUR YEARS

You feel the fortune of your years,

I hope. For all your children’s love

This day must bring you happy tears

And thoughts that joyful music prove.

I hope, for all your children’s love,

There is an island, be it small,

And thoughts that joyful music prove

Beyond what years you may recall.

There is an island, be it small,

Amid the passions of the sea,

Beyond what years you may recall,

Where you in silent grace can be.

Amid the passions of the sea,

This day must bring you happy tears.

Where you in silent grace can be,

You feel the fortune of your years.