The old year goes, is gone, almost,

To history, but, - not quite ghost -

It will be with us in the new.

What ill the governor did not do,

And all the children did, will stay

To complicate some coming day.

Rains that barely washed one sky

Lie slack in cisterns, dumb, dry,

And you, and I, who wreaked a wrong

Last May, will pay, and not in song;

Next spring, a truth we said be said

Twisted until that truth is dead.

So! But also, wrinkle and shine

Off summer's waters will underline

A glint of August's not yet noon,

Last year's sand heap a new dune,

And last October's begotten child

Cry in July in a new world wild.

Now new year's poems talk of stars

High over here and this and ours.

But what will happen, more than once,

Began when you were building bones,

And I was reading the books at hand,

Hoping to own them and understand,

Trying to learn, from an old text,

What had happened, what to do next.