New Year’s Eve

Is this day a precipice, a cliff

From whose edge we will fall?

Or, if it is a precipice,

Will it also serve as a hand glide launching strip
     For the inevitable coming year?

Janus-faced it is,

Prompting me to reflect in this mirror poem

All that has filled the ending year, and

Prompting me to see the year ahead

As a meadow, lush with promise,

Inviting me to plunge forward.

I reflect wars and births, deaths

By car bombing, sniper fire, foul water,

Strangulation, stabbing, tripping,

Foul food, foul air, greed, and corruption--

Sin in all its many facets. 

I shade my inner eye, and

Look over the landscape before me,

Rich with promise, complex,

A  meadow.

--December 31, 2013