New Year’s Poem

Time is falling all around us today,
white and swirling like the snows
on these frozen dirt roads
somewhere in the woods
of New Hampshire.

Such beauty, this time,
when the light has left us
tired of fighting. The cold melting on my face
is a relief to the sting of the wind
from yesterday and all that howling
and breaking of branches.

This winter blanket folds herself softly against me,
velvet as the lining of an elegant coffin,
inviting me, like a mother’s calm lullaby,
to crawl in, put my weary head down,
and close these eyes for a long sleep.

If only tonight,
at the end of the storm,
and the end of another year of trying
to command happiness to hold me at midnight
and look me in the eyes for a single, sweet kiss--

if only tonight,
at the bell of this new year,
I give away the dream like my last breath
and awaken tomorrow morning alone,
perhaps then I will finally notice
joy landing on my sleeve,
one delicate flake at a time,
melting gracefully
like the blessings
of the beloved.