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On My Seventieth Birthday.

For breakfast there will be Eggs Benedict
with buttered mouth-watering toast, dripping and ladened,
there will be bustle, laughter, cuddles and kisses,
family and friends, greetings and wishes.

On my Seventieth birthday, there will be…
Buck’s Fizz that makes my head ‘ tizzy and dizzy’
and makes me feel seventeen and silly again.
I shall stand outside, perhaps run with the wind blowing in my hair,
I shall be free and fanciful with young limbs and pretty varnished toes,
I shall paint my lips scarlet red and mascara my lashes
just as I’ve always done…

I shall wear stockings and suspenders, with 4″heels, just like the ones
that caused such a stir in the sixties,
when as a young woman I wore with joy,
today as an act of defiance and because I still can!

We shall eat cakes for lunch and why not? Newly made warm scones dripping with clotted cream and raspberry preserve,
tiny sandwiches, ones you pop-in, in one go, so dainty and neat they make you feel like a princess.
On my Seventieth birthday…

Then I shall have a G & T maybe two, take my dreams and sleep till three,
then after…lay in perfumed bubbles till I’m all shiny and new,
to make curls in my hair and paint a face
so fair even a ghost from the past would grin at this forties gal,
I shall take my laughter from a hidden drawer and
wear my very best smile for I have to be ready to dance till dawn…

Shall I run barefoot across the grass under the stars at midnight
or sashay in my stilettos of the past?
No tiara or my best hat not on this day, but there will be the music,
the music of my youth, to drag memories from my soul
the songs I know so I won’t feel old, not one bit!

There will be soft twinkling lights, champagne, giggles
and the room filled with all the happy faces of my family and dear friends. I shall dance and strut with flair, I will flirt with handsome men
but…
I shall think of you as I always do, you will be there with me resting your arm lightly on my shoulder, the scent of you captured, tucked close to my heart and mixed secretly with all my luscious memories of the past…
Can you believe I made it….
And what would YOU think of me on my Seventieth birthday I wonder…

 

Susie Hemingway @ November2017.