He had just celebrated, <br />with kindred friends and spirits <br />his seventieth. <br />The guests now gone <br />and one could hear <br />the squeaking of his rocking chair <br />accompanied by birds, <br />who, in the tropics, sing at night <br />as well, it set the stage <br />for melancholy reminiscence <br />about the crossroads he had reached <br />where spectators just stood, <br />observing him with friendly faces <br />and the benevolence of man. <br /> <br />The specialist had said 'you will be fine', <br />though using neutral words to intimate <br />that things were in control, <br />that modern medicine would win <br />with weapons like FU, his special chemo. <br />There was a climate that surrounded <br />and pampered him, as if to say <br />'because we like you, Jim, you'll be okay.' <br /> <br /> <br />And so, there was no need to fret, <br />to get some order into his affairs. <br />He looked again at the physician's card, <br />with HAPPY BIRTHDAY in fluorescent letters. <br />He read the text again, but searched, <br />in vain for what was old tradition: <br />Returns, the many happy ones! <br />It was not there, perhaps an oversight? <br /> <br />A shadow crossed his tired face <br />when from within a voice sang out, <br />it told him what he knew to be <br />the truth, that this would be his very last.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-many-happy-returns/
