Friday, January 2, 2015

January 2: New Year's Resolution, Kim Addonizio, "New Year's Day"

My sister is still at the hospital as far as I know.  It is 10 p.m.  This night has been fairly quiet.  A good time to reflect on...life.  The start of a new year always makes me a little melancholy.  It has a lot to do with things that I haven't accomplished, things that I wish to accomplish, and the wide chasm in between.

I didn't really make any New Year's resolutions.  I made a New Year's plan.  I am going to seriously work on a book that's been brewing in my head for several years.  I'm going to consciously carve out time every day to write.  I mean, besides my blog posts.

So I'm not going to get all depressing and dark.  I'm going to leave that up to Kim Addonizio tonight.

Saint Marty knows 2015 is going to be a better year.

New Year's Day

by:  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
on the West Coast. Here in Virginia

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

lowered 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.
I'm dreaming...

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