I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I’m not going to list an inventory of accomplishments (or lack thereof) from 2025 or state any intended resolutions for 2026.

Instead, I will take the day to rest up after shoveling snow in the wake of a massive storm that walloped Central New York.

And I will also share a poem I recently read in The Essential Poems by Jim Harrison.

It seems fitting for New Year’s Eve, as does one of my previous poems about the essence of time (below). I love the line about “my imperishable stupidity,” since I can relate.

Calendar

Back in the blue chair in front of the green studio
another year has passed, or so they say, but calendars lie.
They’re a kind of cosmic business machine like
their cousin clocks but break down at inopportune times.
Fifty years ago I learned to jump off the calendar
but I kept getting drawn back on for reasons
of greed and my imperishable stupidity.
Of late I’ve escaped those fatal squares
with their razor-sharp numbers for longer and longer.
I had to become the moving water I already am,
falling back into the human shape in order
not to frighten my children, grandchildren, dogs and friends.
Our old cat doesn’t care. He laps the water where my face used to be.

Harrison, Jim. Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems. Edited by Joseph Bednarik, Copper Canyon Press, 2019.

Clock on the Wall

Time is an entity unconcerned
With our hopes and aspirations.
It marches on unimpeded,
Multiplying seconds to minutes
And making centuries.
It is unswayed by emotions
And unaffected by our wishes and ambitions.
It is heartless in its swiftness—
A thief and a robber,
And life’s only true survivor.
It is unmerciful in its lack of discretion,
And unstoppable in its one-way direction.
It does not yield, it never ends and
It does not ask us our permission.
And yet, we still ask it for more.

Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems by Francis DiClemente (Finishing Line Press, 2019)