Now We Are Thirty-Six

My dad loves writing poetry.  And he's good at it too!  I have a blog where I attempt to accumulate his poetry, although this is a very small fraction of the stuff he's written.  One of the special things he does is writes us a poem every year for our birthday.  I'm not sure when that started but perhaps it was this book that spurred that tradition.  I got this book when I was a little girl.  It's one of my very treasured possessions. 

The title poem is in the back.

As you can see the final verse has been scratched out. For a few years it was tradition that my dad would come up with a new little verse to mark the passing birthdays.  The back cover has another verse penned out from when I turned nine.

That's the back story for this year's very special birthday poem.  (Because today just happens to be my birthday.)


Heather, On Motherhood (subtitled, Many the Poo)

When I was 31, I wondered what I'd done.
When I was 32, I barely knew what to do.
When I was 33, I had no time for me.
When I was 34, I had one baby more.
When I was 35, I just tried to survive.
But now I am 36, I'm as clever as clever.
I think I'll be 36 now for ever and ever.

And because I'm super douper lucky, I got a second poem:

Ramshackle Heart

You inhabit every corner of
This ramshackle heart of mine,
Walls without clocks and doors without locks
And love wrapping round like a vine.

For the doors are simply memories
And the windows but a view
Of moments of grace that are holding in place
This heart you can see right through.

And often a door falls open,
And another door, and then...
There's my little girl at five years old;
There's my little girl at ten.

There's my little baby all grown up
With babies of her own
And wondering to herself, no doubt,
At how much they have grown.

And though you may not hear from me,
My heart has heard from you...
This ramshackle heart would have fallen apart
If those messages didn't come through.

A door, a door, another door,
There is no foretelling when,
And there you are, and there you are,
Yes, and there you are again.