Today when I turn seventy-five
with a brain buzzing like a hive,
I can hardly believe I'm still alive,
that I'm ready for the skis and sincerely thrive,
without as much as even having to strive,
on this day when I do arrive
at this powerful day & date,
and that I didn't show up as someone late;
that I'm still enjoying a living fate,
with Anna, my lively Wildwife & mate,
even getting here without any serious fears,
found no scares at neither Target nor Sears,
being one of the few remaining King Lears,
who won't let all these years reduce me to tears

- but eventually all this has to cease, to stop,
just like a bubble that will tremble & pop,
and like Uncle Bruno I'll be dust & smoke,
poured into the soil for anyone to poke,
which will be a good, distinguished end,
with no dedicated grave for anyone to tend

Yes, even though life may be adventurous & grand,
it's dependant on each & every gland,
and it's disputed how much a gland can possibly stand,
and still, it's hard for a sentient being to understand
that everyone must depart from the living's land
but I've pretty much lived out myself,
with twenty-three collections of poetry up on the shelf

(The world is dense
with the dead and those not yet born
We are the exceptions,
but haven't always been, won't always be)

I lie in my sleeping bag
in our bed upstairs,
having just passed the 75-year mark,
not feeling any different, physically;
could be decades younger,
energywise, strengthwise, ideawise,
dreamwise, prolificwise
- but the sheer number scares me some,
having me listen for the shofar endnotes

Just as I woke this morning
of 13th February,
having been born again at 2 AM,
I got a greeting,
coming at me from the other side of this world,
traveling at the speed of light (300 000 km/h)
from good old Michael Lonsdale in Australia,
seeing me through with a warm greeting
on this cold, lonely winter morn;
Anna having left for work long before I woke;
the house a wooden fridge
on a hill in freezing hell;
me warming my hands & heart
at this premier birthday greet
from good friend Michael Down Under Esq.,
thus making a real, actual, practical difference
as the bell sort of tolls,
somewhere in the snowy vicinity

- and I can't refrain from wishing myself a hippie birthday!