More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

Happy Birthday to ME!

 Yep! 65 years old! This is my birthday poem to ME! I've been writing these personal celebration poems for... Hmmm... 10 years! I think... Maybe more. here's the new one. If you look close, you can learn a lot about me... if you wish to.

… At 65

I count the change inside my pocket with my left hand,

my fingers know instinctively the weight and size            
of quarters, nickels, dimes… a delinquent penny
that tries so hard to mask its absolute unworthiness.
But it can’t fool me; Lincoln’s beard is far too prominent.

With eyes half closed I watch the sparrows picking

through the spring-green lawns outside the window.
An extended winter for them; famine and cold,
a darkness so thick the barn owl refused
to hunt at night. Even the sturdy crow refused—
Well, that’s not quite right, no, not true at all.
Crows would never miss an opportunity to stir-up trouble,
taking what they want without a thought for
self-inflicted harms, surviving one worm at a time.
But they hope, crows do, and they pray and so
often they sing when they  really shouldn’t… off key,
most times… boy, how we wish that they wouldn’t.

I once believed myself a crow. A dark, black creature with

enormous kite like wings, sculpting brutal midnight
from the skin of the sky with my ferocious Ginsu beak.
All the while Her Moon-ship screamed at me, “Stop that!”
But I ignored her, didn’t care to hear, never notice all the tears
forming on her cratered face, dissolving into desperate stars.
Selfish little girls are crows, oh, yes, that’s what we are.

According to my fingers there’s exactly sixty-five cents lost somewhere

within the gravitational folds of my black-hole pocket. Should I take
their word for it or count it myself? No. Not once have they lied to me.
Well… Except that one time when I desperately begged them to do so.

Written for Robert R. Woods

on his 65th birthday

May 23rd, 2013