Birthday Poems

I had a just so birthday, nothing momentous, which is good really, I've never been much bothered by marking the passage of the years of my existence. So just a couple of nice things that have occupied my day today. This TED talk:



which was lovely with my morning cup of tea.
And this poem from the book 'Unsent' by Penelope Shuttle given to me as a gift by my dear friend Julie:

Outgrown

It is both sad and a relief to fold so carefully
her outgrown clothes and line up the little worn shoes
of childhood, so prudent, scuffed and particular.
It is both happy and horrible to send them galloping
back tappity-tap along the misty chill path into the past.

It is both a freedom and a prison, to be outgrown
by her as she towers over me as thin as a sequin
in her doc martens and her pretty skirt,
because just as I work out how to be a mother
she stops being a child.