on my sixtieth birthday I look in the book of me and see How somehow still I will be me As being I was when I will be Me then and now simultaneously Prevented by mortality From living forever never mind Until I understand somehow I look ahead now and then from behind One to wonder about it now In his crossword puzzlings to confess To be who did this poetry Who does because he was me more or less Honored to be nominated I Accept my gift to live and die Trying my best the rest I forget Getting on and yet getting on with it Forgiving forgetting getting it Falling so far though like a star Any of many all of us are Who write to light the night if but a bit Written down in the book of me Now and then simultaneously Is how somehow still I will be After the fall shining on after all Steven Curtis Lance   Photo of SCL the elder by SCL the younger, in downtown Joshua Tree