2011

Sunday the 7th....already a week into the new year...and FINALLY a chance to come up for air after the holidays...I havent really had a moment to myself until now...to plan for the coming year...I EVEN wrote some resolutions down....

I used to dismiss this practice in the past, but I just turned 39 this December, and as I get older I am starting to see the need for SOME sort of plan if only for the illusion of "direction".

(What those resolutions are is really for my sake only, but suffice to say I preferred to address things I wish to DO rather than things I need to STOP doing...)

Last Sunday...after working New years eve and day...I went out to the nearby branch of Powell's bookstore and bought a copy of poems by Charles Simic...a new favorite...it was a crystal clear cold day with an etched blue sky....a good day to bring home some new poetry...

I found this poem in another anthology and hunted down his work....it is very appropriate when contemplating time and a new year...

THE ALTAR

The plastic statue of the Virgin
On top of a bedroom dresser
With a blackened mirror
From a bad-dream grooming salon.

Two pebbles from the grave of a rock star,
A small, grinning wind-up monkey,
A bronze Egyptian coin
And a red movie-ticket stub.

A splotch of sunlight on the framed
Communion photograph of a boy
With the eyes of someone
Who will drown in a lake real soon.

An altar dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful, it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost.

-Charles Simic







Here's hoping we all appreciate what we have, and make things happen in this fresh new year...