Hopes and fears of all the years...

You tell me
How there will come a point

when you no longer can

look forward to the year

new year

and i know somehow

no one should have to feel this way

yet here where we wait for gaudy sphere

to drop, where there is only counting

down and counting down

even here in all the blast and flop

of fireworks, confetti muck

even now, in all this press of people

is there not knit

with time timeless?

this hyacinth, this madeliene

this other way where light pours forth

from magic lamps Arabian nights

i cannot spin that tale too well nor shine

that light, but lo how fabled star still shineth

bright on this dark river--

how she will not succumb to winters' ice