This day

Before the birthday
of mine
was this day
this stepping out
in new shoes
dapper, handmade outfits
on the way to the modern
world, but not quite

the timeless hymn
the same trees
in infancy
today great towers
of knowledge
arching over time
with the slow joy
in the creation of new
reasons and patterns

this day, this flicker of life
that all ancestors bear
and give along
to the next and the next

this day that could have existed
for anybody else
but didn't, was theirs,
their moment,
but is now yours.

By Shona Cole