Birthday Sonnet

I gift a notion rather than a thing:
May those whose lives depend beyond themselves
Soon learn enough of love to know to sing
Some silly songs of Giants and Bears and Elves:
May kids and cats and pups of every stripe
Learn full enough of love to take them through
Dark barren hours of artificial night
That they fall in and give beyond all due.
I'll save the larger wish: that they but know
Such learning pains as falls and scrapes and bumps
Until we learn to teach adults to grow
Beyond their lie: the world belongs to grownups.
Your birthday wish: what might be, can be --
Awareness of dreams builds reality.