The toughness indoor people have:
the will
to brave confusion in
mohair sofas, crocheted doilies - challenging
in every tidy corner some
bit of the outdoor drift and sag;
the tenacity
in forty quarts of cherries up for winter,
gallon churns of sherbet at
family reunions,
fifty thousands suppers cleared away;
the tempering
of rent-men at the front door, hanging on,
light bills overdue,
sons off to war or buried, daughters
taking on the names of strangers.
You have come through
the years of wheelchairs, loneliness -
a generation of pain
knotting the joints like ancient apple trees;
you always knew this was no world to be weak in:
where best friends wither to old
phone numbers in far-off towns;
where the sting of children is always
sharper than serpents' teeth; where
love itself goes shifting
and slipping away to shadows.
You have survived it all,
come through wreckage and triumph hard
at the center but spreading
gentleness around you - nowhere
by your bright hearth has the dust
of bitterness lain unswept;
today, thinking back, thinking ahead
to other birthdays, I
lean upon your courage
and sign this card, as always,
with love.