The exemplary poet is 70 years old today, and I must return to the market square to plant a song.

The gardener of redolent words, the warrior of light, is three scores and ten years today on Mother Earth. I cannot survive the luxury or mystery of silence. Fire in the bushels of barbarians, scourge of tyrants and traitors, the predictable voice against the conclaves of corruption, he of million metaphors, neither tired nor tiring of speaking truth to crookedness in high and low places.