First Day of the Year

And if we sit around

reading books all day,

one day a year,

what does it matter?

And if we lost our equilibrium

for one long moment,

if we yelled and screamed

and said unrepeatable things

to someone who won’t remember,

does it matter?

We woke up this morning feeling good,

feeling close, well rested, well connected.

Later, we felt the weight

of our responsibility to save the world

through the concentration of our best thoughts,

but that passed quickly,

overtaken by a story in a book

and the putting aside

of most everything present

I may pick it up again

with the grave attention it deserves:

tomorrow gives us another chance.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 1, 2017