A Happy Birthday

Ted Kooser

This evening, I sat by an open window

and read till the light was gone and the book

was no more than a part of the darkness.

I could easily have switched on a lamp,

but I wanted to ride this day down into night,

to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page

with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

Dishwater by Ted Kooser
Slap of the screen door, flat knock

Flying at Night by Ted Kooser
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations

Porch Swing in September by Ted Kooser
The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun

Untitled [Each time I go outside] by Ted Kooser and
Each time I go outside

		Poems About Birthdays
		A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
		A Newborn Girl at Passover by Nan Cohen
		Birth by Tina Chang
		Crossroads by Joyce Sutphen
		Fifty-Three by Eileen Myles
		Infant Joy by William Blake
		Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
		On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
		Poem at Thirty by Michael Ryan