"Oh, It's My Birthday, Oh, It's My Birthday, Oh, Oh, Oh, It's My Birthday!"

On Sequoia's fourth birthday
Our house takes outside in:
A tipi filled with stuffed bears
Wearing paper party hats
Glows in one corner. Aspens
Drug down from the mountains stand
Dressed in lights and dream mushrooms.

Moss and sprays of fragrant pine
Decorate table and hearth.
Even the mice are confused
And keep invading the house
Despite the mild December,
Keep getting trapped, ushered out
With long drives into real woods.

It's that kind of existence.
It always is. The dreaming
Of lives within lives, embraced
And embracing. Our tree grows,
Branching speech and dancing roots,
A mystery, a human,
As we all grew, inside out.