Learning how little trace
you’ve left in places
you’d thought you’d trampled,

then seeing deep hollows shaped
just like you where you didn’t even know
you had been; when it happens,

that’s your real born-on day.
Forget calendars, forget cards
and gifts that will break or wear out

six months from now. 
You just found yourself.
You are brand new.

You start measuring your steps
any time you go out, checking
weight and placement, 

mindful of what’s underfoot.
Can’t change all you’ve damaged
but you can end your clumsy bumbling

and now and then retrace your path,
try and straighten up anything
you might have crushed

knowing nothing will revert
to what it once was but
wounds might yet be soothed.

It’s your birthday. You just emerged:
so little time left. You wasted
almost all of your body’s time

by not seeing this earlier
but now is now, here is 
one destination and there’s

another one, a celebration
waiting for your not so grand
entrance. Go along, now;

you were not
meant to end
while standing still.