Thirty-some journeys round the sun

on this beautiful spinning globe

of budding earth and swirling sea.

I have been, with you,

a part of the eternal dance

in this vast expanse

of unknown universes.

Here, on our little patch

of known time and space

each day is small, but holy

as we breathe together

this miracle of air,

and stare up together

at the impossibly wide

canvas of sky.

In my numbered days

I have felt deeply;

I have been swept up

in peels of laughter.

I have wept and pleaded and howled

with both delight and sorrow.

I’ve had my heart shattered,

and pieced the shards back together

again and again,

in the constant making

that is being alive.

Each year, each week, each moment,

we fumble to arrange the fragments

into something more beautiful

and somehow more whole.

This mosaic,

tenderly assembled

in the breaking and re-making,

is the lavish gift of years.