My Birthday Poem from Claudio...

One and thirty years ago
you came into the world
a lovely wisp of innocence,
a pigtailed little girl.

And on this January day
I call into my mind
the birthday of the wife with whom
my own life is entwined.

I wonder if, upon that morn,
when I was five years old,
some sense of you in me was born
as prophecy foretold.

I grieve—for Lord, I also miss—
those years we two unknown
across a hundredmile abyss
danced and played alone.

But though the years now come and go
and leave us worse for wear,
take their tolls on our poor souls
and tempt us to despair,

Heaven's promise, solemn vows
of sweetness and of joy
of happier times beneath the boughs
tell this expectant boy:

That we the best of childhood friends,
will yet have danced and played—
in the day that never ends
a little lad and little maid.

And one eternal year again,
you will be in the world
a lovely wisp of innocence,
a pigtailed little girl.