The pilgrimage of the body from infancy to dust to nothingness,
and the oasis, some believe, of a heaven afterward, every nationality
on their knees, sipping, taking turns, even the reverent sharing with folks
like me. At the very least cake and candle celebrations along the way,
a few people happy for your next next, others not as jealous
as they might be, the movement (if we’re lucky) from ignorance
to astonishment, allowing for a thousand dumb days in between.
And seeds becoming tomatoes and redwoods, ants becoming armies,
language allowing us to disguise what we mean, sky one syllable
for all that complexity, and starfish making their homes in the sea.
I praise on my seventy-fifth birthday the strangeness, the immensity, of what I have
and have had and every small thing that against the odds continues to be.