Birthday Blues

With a flourish
tear a leaf off the tell-tale calendar,
smile and feign surprise.
Ha! There goes another year!

Sit down. Pick up your guitar
and from its trusted strings
draw a minor chord,
pick out a falling bass,
its sighing notes dandelion bubbles
drifting out of reach.

This is a song
to words unsaid and letters left unsent
to many might-have-beens
(too many, some might say)

This is a song
to faces which remained
unfathomed, unfamiliar
like drawers left unopened and untouched.

This is a song
to places unexplored,
maps which never leapt away
from the printed page.

This is a song
to stories yet unheard
to books on shelves which crave
a reader’s eager gaze.

Bring on the reprise,
strum two major chords,
paint some sunshine
on the soaring line.

For this will be, as well, an ode
to what your life has been,
to what (despite an innate fear
of hidden dips and bends)
you’ve journeyed through,

and tasted, seen
and felt upon your skin.

Last bar.
Stand up and take a bow.
Lay down your guitar.

Look, the air still shimmers
like vibrating strings.
The music never ends.

I wrote the original version of this poem some years back (2014, I think) and uploaded it on a writers' website where it got some positive feedback. The site is now long gone and I thought I hadn't kept a copy of the poem until I came across it today. How does a poem start to take shape? I'm not sure. In this case, the first words came to me on a trip to Exeter. Don't ask me why.

Artworks featured are "I listen for your touch" by Hugo Grenville (b. 1958) and "Exeter Cathedral" by Merite Watercolour"