Burnng the Old Year

Brent Cotton

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye

"So much of any year is flammable". I appreciate the idea of burning all the things that are unneccessary. Purging the past, cleansing all the partials, the half-ways, the debris and rubble - getting completely clear of it so there's space -"absence" as Nye calls it - room to move forward, to dance, to look off into the distance and make new plans and goals. It seems like the perfect way to end the year.