Happy New Year

The new year brings us hope,

for something better, better weather or a return

to better times, when we were younger, perhaps

something normal even, maybe a new job or a pay raise,

winning the lottery, a new car or a long vacation

to the islands, a cruise, some place warm, good times

again, even peace in this troubled world, a sense of unity,

of working together, how we remember things used to be;

but a turn of the calendar page, tearing off but one day,

a new numbered year, changes nothing, nor do the incantations

of Auld Lang Syne sung at the stroke of 12, and there’s no magic

elixir at a drunken bash celebrating the new year or in a ball dropped,

the final seconds counted away, for when it’s over and we sober up,

we find nothing has changed but the date, and the better times didn’t return,

didn’t come back; but there is a new hope in moving forward, in facing

an uncertain new year, a new hope giving us something better to believe in.