Week 5 Poem: Happy 32

If today were your first birthday, or your third or ninety-third
it would be a miracle,
a miraculous bursting of life
of bright laughter and red streaks.
If today were your fourth birthday or your sixty-second,
it would be a treat, a gift to the land and sky
and trees would sway their hips
with the rhythm of celebration.
It would be a rain cloud, heavy with promise,
bloated with blessing
that would weep if today were your sixth birthday,
or your sixteenth. Sweet, sweet sixteen times two,
is you,
Thirty-two.
And Karl Malone, and Magic Johnson and Sandy Koufax all know
just as well as I do (for the next 4 months or so) that 32 is where it's at.
a happy number (mathematically speaking) and what's good enough for Beethoven (goose) is certainly good enough for the gander.
Thirty-two paths of wisdom-
Read the Kabbalah or just count my thirty-two grown up teeth.
Call Belgium or traverse the counties of Ireland, you'll always find thirthy-two. I'll join you
until May
and then you alone will carry the thirty-two torches.
You are a celebration any day.
Happy Thirty-two,
Happy Birthday,
Happy you!