I was your little boy.
You taught me to love learning and music and poetry.
You taught me how to read at a very, very early age.
Here I am, still reading, still loving the printed page.
Here I am, still recalling my childhood joy,
As something inside me moves, and moves me closer to eternity.
You sang lullabies to me--my earliest memory--
And you sang ballads of great beauty and poignancy later on.
Even now, years later, it is so hard to take that you are gone.
That your voice cannot speak, cannot sing.  Only in memory,
Which, though my memory is sharp and bright and keen,
Is still a pale copy of the full-bloomed beauty of good reality.
My early science-loving and poetry-loving was mixed in a little boy,
Who was still made of "snips and snails, and puppy dog tails."
My precious mother, in so many ways, because of you, I was blessed.
For me, of all possible persons who could have raised me, you were best.
Today is your birthday, and I mark it with gratitude and love,
And hoping and praying you still have or will have new good life,
Whether it is in somehow returning, or the grace of God's loving wing,
To shelter you with mercy and love in some wonderful heaven above.
I owe you my life, precious mother; I owe you everything.
Now, facing as I do my own fearful life-threatening painful final knife,
I love you, I'm grateful to you, I honor you.  Only this much left to say:
I wish you joyful, good new life to celebrate.  I love you.  Happy birthday.

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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Sunday, April 3, 2011  9:03 am PDT
67 degrees F.  Humidity: 30%  Forecast:overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved