[Image: “January Morning, New Jersey (with Shuttered Swimming Pool),” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

Over the last week, whiskey river has run the gamut of emotions surrounding the new year, both looking ahead with cautious and ever so tentative optimism, and looking back a few days — and all around — at what 2023 has actually delivered so far. Here at RAMH, today, newly returned from a holiday road trip to visit family, I’m not quite ready to view the grime of the moment. So I consider, first, this (italicized lines):

At the New Year

In the shape of this night, in the still fall
of snow, Father
In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds
and children
In everything that moves tonight, the trolleys
and the lovers, Father
In the great hush of country, in the ugly noise
of our cities
In this deep throw of stars, in those trenches
where the dead are, Father
In all the wide land waiting, and in the liners
out on the black water
In all that has been said bravely, in all that is
mean anywhere in the world, Father
In all that is good and lovely, in every house
where sham and hatred are
In the name of those who wait, in the sound
of angry voices, Father
Before the bells ring, before this little point in time
has rushed us on
Before this clean moment has gone, before this night
turns to face tomorrow, Father
There is this high singing in the air
Forever this sorrowful human face in eternity’s window
And there are other bells that we would ring, Father
Other bells that we would ring.

(Kenneth Patchen [source])

…and then this:

Hymn to Time

Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.

And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.

Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.

Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.

(Ursula K. Le Guin [source])

Christmas week — the week before we headed up to New Jersey — the eastern half of the country, all the way down into Florida, was slammed by an unusually severe wave of cold weather. It culminated, that weekend, in the deaths of dozens of people in the Buffalo, New York, area: people without heat, people stranded in the snow, unable to be reached by emergency crews who were likewise stuck in the snow trying to get to them, all of this developing in advance of a holiday break, and a weekend, for hundreds of other service personnel who weren’t even there to handle all the calls, to plow the streets, and so on. A disaster.

Here in this region of North Carolina, things didn’t get so dire. But it was still plenty cold, with overnight lows in the teens (Fahrenheit). Worse, during that week our own heating system, as well as many of our neighbors’, decided it wasn’t ready for that kind of cold, that early in the winter. So we did a lot of bundling up in long undergarments and warm blankets until the HVAC guy arrived on Christmas Eve day. But then, weirdly, things changed post-Christmas. Even in New Jersey, temperatures were up in the balmy 60s. (Luckily, we’d been watching the forecast so were not caught by surprise — it would’ve made for a sweltering “Welcome back to the Deep South!” holiday if all we’d packed in our suitcases were long johns, flannels, and woolen sweaters.)

Well, we’re back now. Not quite prepared, true, to hit the ground running on all the important decisions and actions which lie ahead. But back… and cautiously, ever so tentatively, thinking about the possibilities of the new year.

So, about those possibilities…

Poem for the New Year

I’ve tracked myself from day to day
how many steps through a field of snow
how many hours have I slept
what have I eaten
what did I burn
calories or cigarettes
what birds have poured
through Bellefontaine
where mausoleums bear the names
of Busch and Brown
Lemp and Spink
on marble white as winter endive
when I can read my title clear
to mansions in the skies
what have I read
how many words
what facts
statistics biometrics
what data aggregation
what news
of wins and losses
getting and spending
each dawn a color wheel
to gauge the shifting moods
the daylight sunk in trees
an index of attraction

According to the Tao Te Ching
each day brings more
and more of less
less and still less
with no end to nothing
and nothing left undone

Even here in Bellefontaine
along a winding street
silence brings an interval
of yet more distant sound
trucks along the interstate
a plane behind the clouds

(Devin Johnston [source])

…and, finally:

To the New Year

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

(W. S. Merwin [source])