by Ivan Sekeretarev/AP
Bonne année
No post. Just pix of various fireworks celebrations around the world. Hope yours was happy and safe.
Best wishes for a wonderful new year. May the coming year bring you joy, good health, the company of family and friends, and personal prosperity, however you choose to measure it.
Feliz Ano Novo
by David Rosen/West Seattle Herald
Godt Nytår
AAP
Manigong Bagong Taon
by Hadrian Hernandez/Gulf News
Glückliches neues Jahr
by Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle SF
Hamingjusamur Nýtt Ár
by Antony Dickson/AFP
Gott Nytt År
Music by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “What are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
New Year’s Day
The rain this morning falls
on the last of the snow
and will wash it away. I can smell
the grass again, and the torn leaves
being eased down into the mud.
The few loves I’ve been allowed
to keep are still sleeping
on the West Coast. Here in Virginia
I walk across the fields with only
a few young cows for company.
Big-boned and shy,
they are like girls I remember
from junior high, who never
spoke, who kept their heads
lowered and their arms crossed against
their new breasts. Those girls
are nearly forty now. Like me,
they must sometimes stand
at a window late at night, looking out
on a silent backyard, at one
rusting lawn chair and the sheer walls
of other people’s houses.
They must lie down some afternoons
and cry hard for whoever used
to make them happiest,
and wonder how their lives
have carried them
this far without ever once
explaining anything. I don’t know
why I’m walking out here
with my coat darkening
and my boots sinking in, coming up
with a mild sucking sound
I like to hear. I don’t care
where those girls are now.
Whatever they’ve made of it
they can have. Today I want
to resolve nothing.
I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold
blessing of the rain,
and lift my face to it.
~ Kim Addonizio
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 