Count-Down

Tick, tock, goes the clock

Sixty, Fifty, Forty-two

Pencils scribble furiously

Thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten

Brains scramble rapidly

Nine, eight, seven, six

Checking - double, triple - answers

Oh glories of math class

The stuff of myths and legends

Archimedes, Pythagoras, Euclid -

Or of nightmares.

I can tell you the overwhelming

Opinion in grade-school

Numbers swimming in eyes

Stress over nuances of concepts

Unused outside of class

And word problems - bane of existence

Connecting Life to Math

When nice - unpractical -

When nasty - quite real & horrible

Five, four, three, two

Oh no! A mistake in step

One - Time’s Up!

Tick, tock goes the clock

Counting down - taunting

You’ve learned how to tell time!