Icicles hang like translucent,
Inverted tapers from house eaves.
Seventy-two winters are spent
but now another winter freeze
wreathes my study window with ice.
How many winters have I left?
Three, Five, perhaps if I’m blessed, thrice
as many-- I’ll not hold my breath
as though it were a death sentence;
Hell no! Life’s too short as it is
to think about morbid nonsense
(besides, all things have their finis.)
Yet I’m alive and winters here
I raise my half-brimmed coffee cup
and toast my seventy-third year!
May I see it through; bottoms up!