[Maryann Corbett]

2011 has already arrived in New Zealand and Australia, and the BBC has provided this whiz-bang footage of the fireworks. Enjoy, and best wishes for the new year.

[Roger Slater]

Yikes! I thought I had a few hours left to make everything right. Oh well. Happy new year!

[David Rosenthal]

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

David R.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

May the muse be kind to all in the coming year.

[Holly Martins]

Just to put a damper on things:


NEW YEAR’S EVE, 2010

A quarter to, another year is spent,
another new year will begin again.

I fill my glass to toast the closest shave:
the mason’s cutter will not now engrave,
Born 1950, Died 2010.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Is that one of yours, Holl?? That's my thought every year - not this number on the stone, then.

The Old Year

by John Clare

The Old Year's gone away
....... To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
....... Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
....... In either shade or sun:
The last year he'd a neighbour's face,
....... In this he's known by none.

All nothing everywhere:
....... Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they're here
....... And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
....... In every cot and hall--
A guest to every heart's desire,
....... And now he's nought at all.

Old papers thrown away,
....... Old garments cast aside,
The talk of yesterday,
....... Are things identified;
But time once torn away
....... No voices can recall:
The eve of New Year's Day
....... Left the Old Year lost to all.


May we all make poetry of our passions and our pains this year!

Love to all~

Cally

[Gail White]

This is the first verse of an old song to the tune of "Greensleeves":

The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is enter-ed,
Then let us all our sins down-tread
And joyfully all appear.
Let's merry be this day,
And let us now both sport and play.
Hang grief, cast care away,
God send us a happy new year!

[Roger Slater]

Love that, Cally, thanks.

[David Rosenthal]

I know I already took a turn, but the Burns is more for last night. Here is my favorite haiku poet of all time, Issa (translated by Hass):



New Year's morning:
the ducks on the pond
quack and quack.



and the classic:


New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.


David R.

[Gail White]

By the way, I love Holly's poem, which ought to start a genre.
Here's one I wrote for myself:

Each year since nineteen-forty-five
Has found me glad to be alive.
The stretch will end, I don't know when,
But not, thank God, in twenty-ten.