tale to tale

Booming voices echo tradition,
Voices from different ages, races, creeds.
Celebrating a saint whom they can’t relate.
But a tradition for all rather them some.
In some sense.

I’d celebrate it with the passion of a man who knew what it meant.
But create my own stories around an old one.
A day of wonder,
I’ve found it to be.
More of a gathering reflection of my life,
More significant to wonder where I am than a birthday.
Even that tradition is almost comic.

But I look on today with a growing smile,
To count the trinkets of annual adventures in my mind.
Short romances, mistaken identities, drunken writing and cold days in uniform.
These are my personal memories, recent adventures that have occurred on this very day.

Looking around at each face, the young couple semi-engaged in reality take a trip.
Mother and daughter create new tales for themselves.
Groups cheer to the same enigmatic saint.
It’s blissful to be around the bliss itself.
It’s liberating to liberate with others,
I may look like the lonesome man,
Hunched over his phone,
Punching keys with thumbs.
Brewing over the barely scraped Guinness.
But I too,
I too am in that liberation, that bliss.
I celebrate with friends gone, or away.
With memories of ecstasy and some confusion.

I’m here too,
In my own way.