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How I love the world in all its ripe green beauty and all the people on its skin who cheer me with their effortless kindness! The sun pours down like pancake syrup. The grass grows just like grass but in a dream. Today is my birthday, again; I may never get older. I’m marking the day with a boisterous parade as far as my legs will take me and no plan for stopping. March with me, neighbors, and lift your knees high as we wave to the crowds on the boulevard of my youth, just a street with pretentions, and whistle if you can or borrow a bassoon! I want to make music that sounds like a theme for the rest of my life. Whichever way we turn is the Parade Route: this was the driveway that scraped my knees. This was my yard, where I lay on my back in a shower of stars and wondered if I would be missed. Left is the school where they taught me that God made the day and the night; right is the school where I heard He was dead. Here is the boss who taught me that labor is labor and in no way its own reward. There is the house of the girl who said yes. And her sister. We’ve gathered a jubilant crowd: marching bands and dogs on stilts and a monkey at the piano. Shopkeepers rejoice when they see us approach. The bells on their registers ring as we usher our elephants in through their doors and everyone sings:

I hope to be remembered when I’m gone! 
The town we all grew up in has been gone so long! 
We never thought its undertow could be so strong.
Something is terribly, terribly wrong. 
Something’s gone horribly wrong.

Original Copyright © May 17, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 21, 2026