I recollect her birthday very well
and his, six years more close in memory,
is that much vivider – both visions tell
of little people who came out of me.
And I recall the business I’d begun
now more than thirty years ago. Before the eyes
of memory, the movies reel and run
but still the living proofs are a surprise.

Accomplishments acknowledged yet astound
me with their substance and diversity.
And so when I review the poems I’ve penned,
and see a perfect rhyme or a profound
idea well put, I wonder how from me
such pithy thought and wisdom could descend.