BIRTHDAYS

Birthdays
by A. K. RAMANUJAN (1929-1993)

Birthdays come and go,
for brother, son, daughter,
spouse, niece and nephew,
and among them, mine, and as I grow
older, they come as often as death
anniversaries in all families
I know,
and they linger under tamarind
trees like other absences.

Even universities,
art museums, apple trees
that recycle the seasons,
and inventions like guns
have their birthdays
like St Francis, Shakespeare,
Gandhi and Washington
marked on calendars.

Birth takes a long time
though death can be sudden,
and multiple, like pregnant deer
shot down on the run.
Yet one would like to think,
one kicks and grabs the air
in death throes as a baby
does in its mother's womb
months before the event.

There's no evidence as far
as I can see, which isn't
very far, to say that death
throes are birth pangs.
Birth seems quite special
every time a mayfly is born
into the many miracles
of day, night and twilight,
but death? Is it a dispersal
of gathered energies
back into their elements,
earth, air, water, and fire,
a reworking into other moulds,
grass, worm, bacterial glow
lights, and mother-matter
for other off-spring with names
and forms clocked into seasons?