Happy Birthday. Jim!
thank-you for wearing out many a work-shoe on our behalf.
We love you!!
These work shoes have weathered many a mile
and, if in the kitchen some glares fierce and mean
of which you seem to enjoy as you smile
and reply, "relax honey, they're clean!"
The bread you win I've buttered and packed
Into sandwich-miles so you can eat on the run (you're known for that)
The muffins I've made for your lunches, when stacked
I dare say could almost touch the sun
The food you carry the is same EVERY week, yes!! (for years)
Bananas and cornflakes, muffins and cheese
Yogurt, fruit, somersausage sandwiches
Lately you've relented to "take salad, please!"
(p.s. the jif-jar is applesauce, not peanut-butter😊 )
Happy Birthday Jim, and God bless you, my dear
And keep you safe where many dangers lurk (like moose!! close call this week)
May He keep His hands over yours as you steer
And give you strength to do your work (like cleaning out trailers)
The momentum of moments always startles us somehow
As we constantly marvel at the pace of here and now
Life’s mosaic of days gone by expands, the commonplace
A humbling recollection of God’s faithfulness and grace
Time leaves us at a loss for words where seasons
disappear
And in its dexterous demise adds on another year
While we are busy looking after love’s constant demands
With legacy of work worn shoes and labour-weathered hands
We ought to not look back too long, yet long enough to
count
The blessings overflowing from an invisible fount
Where fight songs we once flaunted with presumptuous
flippancy
Have softened to a much more modest, thankful melody
No matter what our age, there’s always something new to
learn
As we begin to bear the brunt of Bygone’s no return
We need to build each other up while we are breaking down
We need to keep on smiling even when we’d rather frown
Because Time waits for no man in its courses we must
brave
And much of what has shaped us will follow us to the
grave
The ways we’ve become set in too established to undo
Save perhaps this; to say more often these words, I love
you
© Janet Martin
