Birthday Verse

In my eyes you are aging
grown shabby, bumbling and benign.
Trousers held up by string,
on our dawn walk to the sea.
Talking about trees and plants
you so wanted to tend in younger years,
yet gifted you were.

Artisan's hands, and a mind
of quivering complexity
pushed and pummeled you forward
to create, to perform.

Even now as we drive
down silent midnight motorways
and you slip through tiredness
into the separate universe
of the sleep deprived,
you mind will whirr and click.

And then in moment of lucidity
grasp and illuminate
an idea.
Just like the blood orange moon
winks through dark car windowpane
and highlights the corners
of your slumped sleeping body.

I cannot help but love you-
in ways old and strange
Time will not erode this i know.