Zibaldone: Content

Here are a couple of birthday gifts I received in recent years from friends. The first is a mesostic I received from Dan Albertson for my sixty-seventh birthday:

For Harvey Sollberger, 10 May 2005

H andicraft with an earnest patina
A rrestingly skewered aboard freightless vessels
R ecite, ingress toward flora-striped pastures
V ictors of sensuous lethargy
E levation downscaled – formidable slopes linger
Y on the centrifugal presence

The second is also a birthday gift from 2005, and came from Karen and Roger Reynolds:

TO OUR FRIEND HARVEY
67TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

THERE ONCE WAS A MAESTRO WHO – PITIFULLY -
WAS CONSUMED BY LONGINGS FOR ITALY.

AFTER EACH TRIP TO ROME
HE AMAZED ALL WITH TOMES.

'THOUGH BACK HOME HE'S STILL DREAMING GIDDILY.

IN YOUTH, HE ACQUIRED A FLUTE,
AND COULD SOON DO FAR MORE THAN TOOT.

HE'S SO SKILLED WITH HARMONICS,
(BETTER YET, MULTIPHONICS),

THAT HIS LISTENERS ARE RENDERED MUTE.

HE IS FAMOUS FOR HIS SUBSTANTIVE LETTERS,
HIS ELOQUENCE NEVER IN TATTERS.

IN HIS INTRICATE SCRIPT,
NOT ONE DETAIL IS SKIPPED.

PARADOXICALLY, FRIENDS BECOME DEBTORS.

AND AS IF ALL THIS WEREN'T ENOUGH -
HIS MUSIC'S FORMIDABLE STUFF.

COMPOSITIONS ABOUND,
WITH STILL MORE COMIN' ROUND.

HIS DEFT WIT AND WAYS WIN OUR LUF.

- KAREN AND ROGER

Gifts like these make me look forward – paradoxically – to birthdays.