Birthdays Are Friends

This poem was written to put in a birthday card for my dear friend Jerry Bletzacker. I don't think there is any mysterious underlying meaning. None of us will ever get out of this life alive, as the saying goes. And to me birthdays serve as reminders of the shortness of our time and of all the things that we have to do.

Gale L. Wolfenbarger

3 April 1988

Yes, I know that you would rather forget

And pretend that it just isn't so,

That the age in your face and the grey in

Your hair are secrets that only you know.

But birthdays have wings and fly through our

Lives and no matter how hard we try

To forget that they're coming or pray that

They'll pass they find us each year

(heavy sigh).

But birthdays are not a foe to be fought

With sword or bow or mace,

And they haven't a notion of how much we fear

Their coming and tenacious chase.

Birthdays are ticks of that heavenly clock

That stands in our home on high;

Gentle reminders of our mission on earth

And the flight of the years passing by.

Birthdays are friends that Father has sent

To take us with loving hands.

To remind us of all that we've promised to do

Ere the end of the hourglass sands.

So take this day gladly and rejoice and be gay

And sing with the song in your heart

This life here on earth does not mark the end,

In fact it's only the start.

Gale Wolfenbarger

November 1987