Today, Hallowe’en, in the year of grace 2014, I have reached the curmudgeonly age of 85. I have no regrets, no wistful longings for the good old days. My life is filled with a wonderful wife and equally wonderful children and grandchildren. I worry about my country, and worry what kind of world my grandchildren will inherit. There’s nothing I can do about it, and so I often shut down the computer, give the words and rhymes a rest, and look out my kitchen window.

Beyond my kitchen window lives
A wondrous world outside
With creatures who know not that I exist
The squirrel who sits upon my deck
And wonders where to hide
The acorns so that they will not be missed
The blue jay squabbles with the cat
Who looks at him askance
And longs to sink her teeth and shut him up
The butterfly who flutters like
He’s just learned how to dance
The question mark that is my neighbor’s pup
The ladybug who pays no mind
To what is going on
Intent is she on filling up her day
With endless flights both back and forth
Until the light is gone
When finally she ups and flies away
I sit still by my window
Not a move and not a sound
Invisible I am to those outside
I see the squirrel’s jaws move with
Something that he must have found
And ladybug on pup has hitched a ride
I wonder why it is I find
Their actions seem like play
While I sit here and out the window stare
Wishing I could understand
What cat just said to jay
And wond’ring what I’d be were I out there