Birthday Poem, 2015
by Marc Beaudin

A gray morning of crows
& trees tapping the window
with a crimson bud like a thimble
on each finger, playing horse

Then a robin churrips unseen
sounding like every spring morning
of childhood &
gray gives way to blue …

For a few hours anyway
until gray returns
“with a vengeance” we would say
if the sky were human

Nothing of the earth
knows that cowardly habit
& gray just does what it does
threatens rain without threat

But it does bend my plan
of walking by the river
into a glass of Malbec
at the Owl

It does bend my plan
of throwing on some shorts
into feeling the edge of 47 winters
cutting to the bone

But don’t get me wrong:
It feels as good as sunshine,
as a glass of wine in an afternoon bar,
as this silly Beach Boys song

spilling from the jukebox
like a chorus of birds