Thirtieth Birthday

 

1.

In a narrow town in the juniper hills
I drank the first sunny wind of my thirty years.
I crossed to the street's bright side and smiled
  like a man in a new skin.

The seeds of all my young hopes
lie in my present earth.
This day and the days of my future years
call me out of the house of promises
to sow my gifts in history's air

I've had my time to learn,
to hold my lessons and guard my songs,
to feel younger than everyone,
to be wild as city trees and tall
  as the ancient sacred groves.

 

2.

Now a lady's love sees the buried best in me
and curbs the futile fantasies
that would waste my inner eyes.
Her blessing lets my words go free,
her keeping makes my giving rich.

I sing my priestly trade and earn
my peers' respect and daily pay.
Every new adventure gives me food for art
and my hungry heart absorbs the glory,
proud I've come where I ought to be
on the wheels of my own good work.

My thirty years have opened roads I'll ride
  for thirty more,
spending what I've gathered and gathering more,
seeing these beginnings grow and close
and new beginnings appear.

 

3.

In a gambling town in the copper hills
where a sun-splashed butte looks kindly down
I leave my hide by my youth's warm rock
and toast exposed my thirty years.

Ely, Nevada
Nov. 2, 1982