Saturday, April 10, 2010

Happy Birthday, part one

A birthday is the one anniversary that calls out for the happy wishes to be expressed in rhyme.

There are few poems of the “happy birthday to you” variety, but you can find many that celebrate the miracle of birth and are perfect to send out between the pages of a beautiful greeting card.

Perfect like the last verse of this poem.


BEING BORN IS IMPORTANT

Being born is important.
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward the nipples where white milk is ready –

You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toil and sweet agonizing –

You know being born is important.
You know nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood –
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.

~ Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American poet and writer and biographer of Lincoln

1 comment:

  1. Oh that was beautiful and so moving and yes I believe that God does not leave us alone, he's always with us and we have to remember that daily. Beautiful, beautiful poem.

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to leave any comments about today's poem, or to share a favorite poem of your own.

Simply add the text of your comment, then choose the Name/URL option under "Comment as" and add just your name (no URL needed). Or you can leave it signed as "Anonymous."

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.