Today is the Annual Bloggers' Silent Poetry Reading Day, in Celebration of St. Brigid, Candlemass, Groundhog's Day, Imbolc, or February 2.

The poem I chose for this year is one I've posted on here at least twice before. But I think it is appropriate for several reasons. It is "personally" appropriate as this year is a "landmark" birthday year for me (one of those birthdays that ends in a 0) (Though 30, sadly, I will not see again...). I also think the poem is relevant because it is a rather heartfelt and touching poem from someone (Ogden Nash) that I knew mostly for doggerel. I can almost imagine that he had someone specific in mind that he wrote this for. I also like the poem because it flies in the face of "best before" dates (and yes, there is an abominable program on one of the networks - Fine Living, maybe? that talks about a woman's "best before" date. Which makes me both sad and angry) and reminds us that we all have value regardless of how old we are or what we look like.

And then finally, it is just a poem that I like:

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Ogden Nash