For your birthday, this year, many lines I have shown.
Seventy lines, mark your years as they've flown.

Each line shows a year, for right or for wrong
Some seem way to short, while some others seem long.

Some are uneven, and some a full measure
Some a disaster, but others a pleasure.

Some are just perfect, artistic and fine,
While some miss the mark, and seem hardly a line

But taken together not viewed just in part,
They uncover the pattern of love in your heart.

I had just written "Happy Birthday, Dad" on the envelope of his birthday card, and then decided to surround that with 70 lines… one for each of his 70 years. It sort of turned out to resemble a heart, and that inspired this poem. The "line drawing looked like this:

A Line For Dad's Seventieth

Original poetry (and art)
by
David Alan Hoag
June 28, 1999