Sunday, January 1, 2017

A Poem At The New Year...


Off to see a pre-release screening of the movie "Hidden Figures" in a few hours, with all the college kids here.

But as is my usual way, I've been reading poetry, on new year's day. . . and this one called to me (with only the slightest of edits) -- so here it is, in full:

New Year’s Day

Kim Addonizio

The rain this morning falls
on the last of the snow

and will wash it away. I can smell
the grass again, and the torn leaves

being eased down into the mud.
The few loves I’ve been allowed

to keep are still sleeping
[to the south of me]. Here in [Chicago]

I walk across the fields with only
a few young cows for company.

Big-boned and shy,
they are like girls I remember

from junior high, who never
spoke, who kept their heads

glowered and their arms crossed against
their new breasts. Those girls

are nearly forty now. Like me,
they must sometimes stand

at a window late at night, looking out
on a silent backyard, at one

rusting lawn chair and the sheer walls
of other people’s houses.

They must lie down some afternoons
and cry hard for whoever used

to make them happiest,
and wonder how their lives

have carried them
this far without ever once

explaining anything. I don’t know
why I’m walking out here

with my coat darkening
and my boots sinking in, coming up

with a mild sucking sound
I like to hear. I don’t care

where those girls are now.
Whatever they’ve made of it

they can have. Today I want
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold

blessing of the rain,
and lift my face to it.


Onward then -- as 2017 will be better than this, for certain. I will make it so.

नमस्ते

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