new year

this moment is a pause at the beginning
a slow time a time of waiting as things change
as the cycle reaches the starting point again

i answer the phone and hear the same questions
i heard last year and the year before
i give the same answers i give the same advice

and i tell myself to write a poem and make
the patience and the waiting seem its purpose
and the grey skies outside a simple warning

that time keeps moving that the yearly cycle
drives us in different ways that the new young
people i will see are worth the effort that they will

learn and understand and move on
into the world and do their bit to make it
a little better a little more humane

and knowing that at bottom they are the same
as the ones who went before and that their
promise will like all others turn to rock

as life teaches that one man or woman
can do but little even though they know
that a single person with determination

can smash a rock or change the course of
the mightiest rivers or climb the highest
peaks and remain human at the end

but that is in the future and right now
i wait to help and guide and teach
and learn again that this is what does matter