Poems by Rick W. Cotton

They gave us all a calendar
At work this afternoon.
Suddenly it dawns on me,
The year is ending soon!

Comes January, cold and gray.
The new year's just beginning.
And February, short and bright
With Valentine hearts winning.

Comes March, the windy roaring one
And warm the sun of spring.
Then April, bright of shining sky
And flowers blossoming.

Comes May, and school comes to a close
With children's happy laughter.
Then June, with open city pools
And picnics soon thereafter.

July comes booming with a bang
Of red-glared rockets blasting.
Then August lingers with its heat
That seems so...everlasting.

September, gold September comes.
The year is growing older.
October with sweet Halloween.
The nights grow dark and colder.

November smells of harvest,
Of turkey and Thanksgiving.
December comes with joy and light
To fill hearts of the living.

Each page I flip and see these things
Of days yet to come.
My calendar is a door to me,
An adventure just begun!

I'm getting older, nature deems.
I'm coming apart at the seams.
The things that never hurt before
Now multiply, make more and more.

My hair is thinning, or could it be
Just relocating here on me?
Down my back and out my ears
'Tis true! Oh horrid, horrid years!

My teeth were once all mine, oh, yes!
And stayed in place, in permanence!
And now, like stars, they're out at night
(And why do my pants fit oh so tight?)

My hawk-like vision has relented.
Glasses this has circumvented.
I can still see, more or less,
But down at the DMV.....I guess!

There are advantages, I'm told
To all us geezers getting old.
Like discount coffee, oh that's great!
(If we can get out of bed by eight.)

But still we soldier bravely on
And moan and groan with each new dawn.
For it's a good thing that we see
The grass from the side that still is green!

The deep blue says it is autumn.
The sky is never this color
Except for days of cool, clear breeze
And leaves falling one on another.

The gold leaves say the year is ending
In its wild-hued conflagration.
The gentle season of harvest time
And happy fall celebration.

The orange says Halloween's nearing
And Thanksgiving's not far behind.
The heat of the summer is waning fast,
And a peace fills my heart and mind.

The colors of fall are all calling,
And my heart hears their song so clear.
Gray wintertime waits, but let's all celebrate
The brilliance of this time of year!

Jack comes every year to visit me,
And his grin just makes me smile.
Nearly toothless, he doesn't care.
He happily laughs all the while.

Eyes glowing in mirth and merriment,
He makes this time of year happy,
Though he's not much in conversation,
And he has no repartee snappy.

Jack just stays for a few weeks
Every year when the leaves turn yellow.
He's as welcome as he could possibly be.
He's quite the fun old fellow.

Now the sun goes down and the moon comes up,
And the costumed monsters come calling.
Light a candle to get Jack going!
Fast! The eventide's falling!

All Halloween night he sits with me,
Grinning to greet the neighbors
'Til his candle's gone and he goes to sleep.
These are hours that I truly savor.

So long old Jack, tomorrow's November!
We'll see you again next year!
When you come to visit from the pumpkin patch,
We will all be waiting right here!

My dear wife studies Calculus.
She says it's fun; I think she's nuts.
She's solving x and y and z.
I struggle with just 1, 2, 3.
She's got these weird and strange equations,
Mathematical madness machinations,
Exponents and integers.
Not many brains are wired like hers.
She can do it, get solutions.
For me, page one is mass confusion.
Words are my thing, heaven knows,
And I can fling some witty prose.
I rhyme without the slightest reason.
Poems penned for every season,
But give me numbers? Oh, I'm lost!
My brain becomes a salad tossed!
So I'll just stick to poetry
And not advance past 1, 2, 3.
While Sweetie does her sums and graphs
And antiderivatives...just for laughs.