New Year 2008

Rummaging through the local book haunt

I bought a volume with the perfect poem

to read to you tonight.

Paid cash for it,

wrinkled bills & odd coinage.

I thought this apropos

since I had spent

the better part of the morning

worn from a teasing gauntlet

created by my children.

Shocked they were,

to see my feelings actually hurt.

So like children, always hoping

the invulnerable mother vulnerable.

Yet regretful, even fearful,

to discover it is so.

My ankle, hip ache

from the spontaneous afternoon sled ride

down the snow-crushed hill,

my children having watched

as I tumbled head

over heels over head.

Still I stood and smiled,

a bit dizzy but solid.

Now ink mottles the window pane

and the book is here,

on the cluttered dining table

I was supposed to set an hour ago.

I cannot find that poem

which called to me when it was surrounded

by a book-spine spectacular

flaunting itself.

The poem is nowhere to be found.

I have thumbed through it

several times; it is not there.

There are other fine poems,

but the one poem is gone.

The one perfect to read to you tonight,

this night, this last night before tomorrow,

before a whole new year begins,

the year you have proclaimed will be good:

More joy than pain (or at least equal amounts).

More recognition than invisibility,

more companionship than loneliness.

It will be better in so many ways,

better than so many past years.

Better, at least, than this past last year.

Joy, happiness, all that other stuff

will not be elusive, will not be figment,

will be found on the same page

each time it is turned.

(cc) Karen G. Johnston