after John Keats
My brothers retire to my balcony,
watch kookaburras rush from tree to tree,
remark upon the bamboo canopy,
and remember seventeen birthdays we
have shared in familiar company.
Ethan picks and plucks his ukulele.
Dad builds a barbeque. And what of me?
I recline and write this soliloquy:
This is your birthday Evan, and I pray
each one that follows will surpass the last
in the time we have with one another.
And as sunlight through our green ceiling fades,
foreshadowed are the birthdays yet to pass:
a lifetime of barbeques with my brothers.
**Originally published in the 2012 Sydney Uni Anthology, Sparks.