Although I haven't known you many years,
Perhaps because you've dried so many tears,
Pleasure reigns as I these greetings send.
Your happiness should last till all things end!

Because you've been so sweet and understanding,
In toughest times you've made me laugh and smile,
Rejoice in your own specialness awhile:
This I'm not requesting but demanding!

How else to make yourself the celebration,
Doing what does not come naturally?
Always your concern has been for me,
Yet now you must endure my adoration!

* * *

Happy birthday to a special friend.
All my love to you this precious day!
Part of me knows just what I should say;
Part perhaps some deeper word would send.

You're the strand on which I silent write
Before my dreams are swept far out to sea.
In you there's room to canter and run free,
Restoring my lost sense of space and light.

To me you are a place where I can stay,
Hanging out to watch the rush of time,
Drawing in the sand a lazy line
Along which I can go my own sweet way.

You are my sun and shade, my bread and wine.