Gratitude

I did have a very nice 50th birthday, so I thought I would say THANKS here for those of my family, friends, co-workers, and you of the e-cosmos who aided in making it so.

One usually can only be fifty once in a lifetime. A half-century sounds long - though it isn't very long at all - just a little more than pi over two gigaseconds for those of you tecchies out there - but who's counting! Hee hee.

But (as my father would say) we keep celebrating.

Here Is Why

Two thousand years ago (or there about)
The cosmos was turned inside out
The pagan despair was defeated
And pagan hope was far exceeded
The Roman calends downward counted
And Magi on their camels mounted
Starting Virgil's "Golden Age" -
God's new chapter, God's new page:
A fortiori was His style,
"How much more" then was His trial,
Threefold darkness - "It is Done";
Then the quake and Rising Son...
A week of weeks, then wind and fire:
Seven Gifts: go deeper, higher!
The years and centuries go on,
The Darkness followed by the Dawn,
Rome split into many nations,
Still bound by their four conjugations
Going therefore East and West,
Saying "Ite missa est":
News of Word-made-flesh does run
Round the earth and round the sun.
Good news of a lasting birth
Fills the cosmos, fills the earth,
Let all that know, then, find their voice
For even in sorrow, we still rejoice.
(7/10/2005)