The New Year

Fireworks explode outward
against a backdrop of utter darkness.
Exuberant rockets unleashing
brilliant flashes of multi-colored light,
accompanied by pops, booms and bangs,
Proclaiming promises of good things to come
in the new year.

But the exploding lights – so brilliant, so alive
for that brief hope-filled moment
fade away – disappearing behind smoky clouds,
exhaust from the spent rockets, now dead
their burned out demise making way
for the darkness, like reality,
that reasserts itself on our lives.

Pushing away our hopes and dreams,
our promises and resolutions.
Daring us to be more than we are,
or to dream of what could be . . .
Fighting against the exciting stimulus of
a new time, a new year, a new beginning.
Keeping everything the same.

But are we still the same as before?
Did the brilliant lights not mark our soul . . .
Did they not inspire a resolution of dedication
To something more, something better, something of value?
Can we allow darkness to absorb the colors of our soul,
or to silence the sound of our exuberance?
Maybe not this time.

Copyright ©1999 by Leon and Sondra Schlossberg. All rights reserved.
Published in Poetry the Write Way: Webstatic – First Journey (Sept. 2000)

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