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Once upon a warm winter's morning A party at the bird bath ensued When a flurry of birdies, some still yawning Arrived in a rambunctious mood Splashing, chirping, pluming, and preening In no time my heart they purloined Fluttering, flitting, trilling, and cleaning What I would give to have joined! The trees are bare, their boughs like bones Their leaves are at my feet The bleak midwinter's mournful moans Pervade the empty street The air is cold, the sky is clear The moon is going down The stars hang like a chandelier Above the sleeping town I am the only one around There's no one else in sight Just me, the neighbor on the ground The guardian of the night Another year's behind us Old twenty-twenty-five A new one now will find us Determined to survive Awash in retrospections Forgotten all too fast We face in two directions Till January has passed We've dealt with joy and sorrow With pleasure and with pain But history says tomorrow We'll meet them once again For life's an education That helps us realize It's not the destination The journey is the prize Poets tell us that life is a treasure
If we're lucky it might be sublime I am grateful for love beyond measure And my place in the passage of time I am thankful for kindness and caring Simple gestures can make life worth living I am moved by the custom of sharing And the habit of generous giving I rejoice when the strongest are gentle And when wisdom is given its due Never mind if I sound sentimental I revere all that's noble and true I give thanks for the next generation Boys and girls who'll be here when I'm gone Though the future may cause trepidation They're the promise that life will go on Blissful silence, you alone create my perfect comfort zone A refuge from the constant chatter of the world and all its clatter Give me the silence of the tombs before the din of crowded rooms I envy monks their quiet cells away from all those decibels Modern living's noisy ways are ubiquitous these days TV screens on every wall: Do we really need them all? There is no more soothing diet Than hours on end of peace and quiet One by one they slipped away Whittling down the generations After years of holding sway at our family celebrations Always there at every turn Nudging when I'd misbehave. Sadly, I would never learn the tales they carried to the grave Now those family tales are gone Vanished like a shooting star Whittling down the lexicon we use to picture who we are I wish I'd asked them, one by one, to tell me everything they'd done The low grey sky cast a cold grey light
on the coast where I lived in my teens The air in July had a wintry bite that froze my legs in my jeans The lonely beach was a perfect place to puff on a damp cigarette Where the onshore wind would sting my face and my shoes would be soaking wet The stormy sea was a fearsome force The shoreline flecked with foam I watched as the tempest ran its course then finished my smoke and went home Please and Thank You, in my estimation Are essential pillars of civilization When I ask for something and I say please Metaphorically speaking I'm on bended knees When my wish is granted, it's my contention That a word of thanks is the right convention Not everyone, I suspect Sees this ritual as a mark of respect So if you have lemons you'd like me to squeeze I'll do it with pleasure if you'll only say please But if, when I do, you forget to say thank you I'll put you over my knee and spank you It's Monday morning and I'm still in bed I don't have Covid and I don't feel dead I'm not malingering or unusually tired It's very simple: I'm retired I just turned eighty and I wondered why I kept on working as the years sped by Was this the destiny that I desired? Without further ado, I retired I've been so lucky to be self-employed Doing the kind of work that I enjoyed I'm not laid off, I have not been fired No, none of that, I'm just retired It's Monday morning, time to rise and shine To embrace this time that's mine all mine I've kept my marbles and still feel inspired It's a whole new beginning: I'm retired Blue shirts on the bases
Red shirts on the field Who will win this baseball game Is yet to be revealed If my home team should be the one Of course I'll be over the moon Till then I am keeping an eye on the light As it fades in the late afternoon If I could choose I'd prefer not to lose But fate will decide who wins And meanwhile evening shadows fall As the slide toward twilight begins Balls are hit and runs are scored And one team takes the crown A ritual for devoted fans To watch as the sun goes down |
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