Birthdays [Spanish translation]

Celebrated in childhood

With cakes and parties

Gifts and fellowship shared

Joyously brought

To heart and mind

Denied, a few candles

In the early years

Perhaps a safety against

Overexasperated windstorms

Extinguishing wishful lights

Songs and games galore

Jumping, running about

A frantic frolic all the day

To extract what's in store

From that day's passing

Where everyone around

Is always the same

Little change, it seems

Everyday, they are there

In patience and influence

Agéd birthdays, often grey

They change to the mood

Too often all alone

Where time's sifted sands

Fall upon those most dear

Looking forward then

To another year's end

When older is anticipation

An adventure to be gotten

Achieving as an adult

Amassing fabulous gifts

Many candles burning brightly

Delving into society's roles

A feeling of importance

And elated with life

The days push on

Children appear perhaps

The joy, it is reborn anew

They grow on and go away

All that remains is you

If family blessed

They go their ways

As they always do

Perhaps a mate passes on

Solitude, now a fated boone

No cakes, no parties

No songs of joy

Save perhaps an utterance

A remnant of those days

No laughter, but tears now

A troubled soul

That has let time slip by

Ignoring divine diligence

Recounts regrets unmended

Perhaps kindness unextended

In fervent prayer

Imploring the sun to stay

Do not go away today

It will mean only more age

With gifts debilitating

Those 'golden years'

Those really 'rusty years'

Aches and pains invading

No more goodies gotten

All the time degrading

They pass by like subway lights

All the time they're fading

The precious hours buzzing by

And soon it's time to depart

Off at that final destination

So each year passing by unnoticed

Brings alarm to the anniversary of being

The number climbs ever higher

So many candles, so few left

Like a condemned prisoner knowing

It's grand to see a child's eyes

That they remind our hearts to be

For we are all still children

With but this precious hour

In the day of a life's short span