twenty

Count your fingers and toes.
Up and away she goes.
Count every last one.
Laughing now having fun.

Soaring high just begun
Circles around the sun.
There is so much she knows.
Life delights, today glows.

No thought beyond this day.
Teen passage is complete.
Pause here, enjoy and play.
The future is upbeat.

Age words change now from suffix to prefix.
Life moves along into adult topics.

south mountain walk

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street grid calendar

The first week in February
Walking east on 12th Street early morning
Blinded by the rising sun directly in my path
Lined up with the street grid.

This day is not on any official calendar
Not marked like Manhattanhenge
When the sun sets in line with the grid
Late spring and early Fall.

The deepest darkness of the cold season
Since the first week of November
Past us now, the quickening begins
Stirring the spring desires from their sleep.

I hear the first halting refrain of the cardinal’s song.
I see the ducks on the pond begin their courting
The cold keeps its grip but soon will yield
To the rising sun coming back north.

Met Museum Arab Turkish Irani Central South Asian Art

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