By
Stanley Collymore
Birthdays are the personal reference points pertaining
To when our individual life began; how the latter’s
Transition in the interim period has led to what
We now are, and will possibly also quite
Significantly influence our foreseeable
Future too. In other words reality,
Splendidly and encouragingly
Adorned in our cherished dreams, affording us both the
Opportunity and the intentional scope to positively
Do whatever it is that we choose to. And since
You typically exemplify this commendable
Mantra in every conceivable way, what
Better time then to aptly recognize,
Congratulate and support you
Suzie than appropriately on
Your occurring birthday.
©
Stanley V. Collymore
22
February 2019.
Author’s
Remarks:
There are some people who
from the very first moment of meeting them, and putting both personal chemistry
and societal affinity aside, you instinctively know and appreciatively applaud
the fact that the meritorious decision on their parents’ part to both produce
and afterwards facilitate the birth of that individual, and their biological
offspring was a laudable one to say the very least. And Suzie, for whom I’ve
specifically conceived and produced this poem, is most emphatically very much
in that category of persons.
And to satisfy the idle
curiosity of speculative minds – and exclusively so in Britain where altruism
and its associated activities are virtually unheard of by the vast majority of
the population there, and to the rest of them who’ve actually come across this
terminology it’s primarily regarded by them as a highly unwarranted intrusion
into their tedious personal, social and even their monotonous working lives
and, therefore, can best be equated in their skewed thoughts and unthinkingly,
twisted assumptions, any such accorded compliments that is, as the equivalent
of a most coruscating and extremely offensive swear word that’s unexpectedly
been lobbied at them, and accounts for why when in the UK I rarely – outside of
family members, particularly very close and trusted, longstanding friends –
ever write poetry for anyone else in Britain, since my general and decidedly
discerning nature regarding people as a whole isn’t and never will be conducive
to casting pearls before swine; a problem which I don’t encounter anywhere else
outside of the United Kingdom – Suzie: who is very much English and for whom
this poem is written, is a remarkably and quite self-evidently, when one
observes her, happy married lady with a husband, obviously, and a family of
their own, which is itself a distinctive uncommonness in contemporary Britain.
And it’s in her role as a
highly skilled, efficient, thoroughly competent, impeccably dedicated and, most
significantly in that now intensely endangered position as the “good-old-fashioned
librarian”, who not only knows and consequently appreciates but also
assiduously endeavours to maintain the erstwhile ethos and deep-rooted standards
of what a library is there for and all about – characteristics now commonplace
and markedly lacking in an increasingly dumbed-down British public – that I
first met Suzie.
So against the scathing backdrop
of all the aforementioned that I’ve earlier pointed out, here’s my earnest wish
to Suzie that she, together with her husband and their family, have a first-rate
and a most memorable birthday on the 15 March 2019. “Happy Birthday Suzie!”