Running Into A New Year

Good morning…

Our tree is down. Our hopes are up. Before the new day dawns, a poem breezes in.

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i am running into a new year By Lucille Clifton

i am running into a new year

and the old years blow back

like a wind

that i catch in my hair

like strong fingers like

all my old promises and

it will be hard to let go

of what i said to myself

about myself

when i was sixteen and

twenty-six and thirty-six

even thirty-six but

i am running into a new year

and i beg what i love and

i leave to forgive me

Published in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

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Because it is repeated, I focus on the number thirty-six. The one New Year’s Day when I was thirty-six, we had a nearly two-year-old and a nearly four-year-old, and, awkwardly plump, I was seven months pregnant with our third child. What did I say to myself about myself back then?

On Christmas morning this year, one of our four kids asked something like this. “Which did you like best, those Christmas days when we were all little and everything was magic, or this Christmas day when we are all adults, sleeping in, hanging out, and relaxing together?”

“I honestly love them both,” I replied.

Now in the privacy of prayer, I expand my answer. I love them both and I leave them both, no matter how much I beg.

This unique morning, as we are running into a brand new year, we love and we leave. We keep and we let go. We savor the old and we make room for the new. It is good to grab the one and not let go of the other; those who honor God will hold them both. Wisdom makes a person stronger than ten leaders in a city (Ecclesiastes 7:18-19, NCV).

…Sue…

P.S. Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), who grew up near Buffalo, was an American poet, historian, children’s author, and professor. The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist was discovered as a poet by Langston Hughes, who published Clifton’s poetry in his highly influential anthology, The Poetry of the Negro (1970).