He will kill me when he reads this, but I'm writing it anyway. Dear friends, I've been told that my parents have a spiffy new DSL connection, which now means I can blog from the family homestead in Philadelphia this weekend, but just in case I can't, I am seizing the moment to say happy birthday to one of my boyish friends, one of the best fellows to be found on this green and pleasant earth, whose birthday falls on Sunday. (That would be the fellow, not the green and pleasant earth.) In tribute to him, I offer two poems, or rather, a poem and a song. The poem comes from that hardworker, freethinker and overall studmuffin Robert Burns. The song comes from the late Laura Nyro, whose records my mom used to play when I was little, who I rediscovered and listened to for hours as a teenager, and who, thirty years later, still sends me into swoony paroxysms of pop music love.
Happy birthday, you. Yeah, you. You have a problem with that? 
To A Mouse.
Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, -- Robert Burns California Shoeshine Boys California shoeshine boys countin' up their dimes countin' up the girls they've known and countin' up the times I got heartache but I got news California shoeshine boys you can shine my shoes California shoeshine boys never really care only for that California shoeshine in their hair I got heartache but I got news California shoeshine boys you can shine my shoes California shoeshine boys rappin' ten feet tall John can make sweet Cindy cry but Joe can make her crawl I got heartache but I got news California shoeshine boys you can shine my shoes
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,
Wi murdering pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion.
An fellow mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve:
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma request;
I'll get a blessin wi the lave,
An never miss't!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An naething, now, to big a new ane,
O foggage green!
An bleak December's win's ensuin.
Baith snell an keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an waste,
An weary winter comin fast.
An cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro thy cell.
That wee bit heap o leaves an stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble.
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An lea'e us nought but grief an pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An forward, tho I canna see,
I guess an fear!
-- Laura Nyro