You are sky and sea
beyond little me
You are inescapable
unable to be locked up
or corralled or expressed in mere words
words limit your being
yet they are what we have
for the time being
but we have music which is beyond mere words
we have light and dark
we have canvas and computers
but computers work with digits
ones and zeroes
in the sky in the ether
in infinite variety.

Infinite variety
that is who you are
always new
ageless angleless
It is what attracts me to you
you in your agelessness
I’ve always been fascinated with the new
that is one reason I’m drawn to you.
You are ever changing
yet religion speaks of your changelessness.
Why is that?

           Humans need patterns and habits,
           customs and values and norms
           to give them a sense of who they are.

          Yet what is fascinating about you is your changeability.
          You got it my boy.
          Thus the limits of religion.

The first day of the new year
silently edged its way inside
skulking around the wrapping paper

And the empty bottle of champagne,
not making a sound as if waiting
in ambush for the unsuspecting,
or the young, dulled by too much bubbly.

Here in the darkness
it waits patiently
to see what the inhabitants
have cooked up for it.

Before midnight and all the days
accumulated in the old year,
have the sleeping prepared new resolves
for what went undone… if they remember?

Will they remember to write 25 instead of 24
on the first check they write
or did they stop writing checks all together
in the old year or the old old year?

How many will forget the word new
for the twenty-fifth year of the twenties
because they hope nothing new
will disturb their well constructed lives.

How much energy will they expend
to ensure that 25 will be the same as 24?
Or how much energy to protect the 25th year’s
plans from the  upstarts and the different?

Will this first day hear songs of praise
for all we have done
or with the songs hark the herald
of creativity, innovation, and new life?

“New Year?” Copyright 2025 by Glenn Currier
Written 1-1-25

If I were to describe my day
narrate my movements
write a poem about the bluebird on the fence,
call out my dead brother’s name,
decide to cook supper tonight,
or speak my feelings of jealousy,
who would listen?

And if before finishing my narrative
I decide it is not worth
anyone pausing to spend
the time or energy
to read or listen,
then how far would I get in my effort
to even write a word,
speak a phrase,
think deeper than a layer of dust,
or feel anything beyond the weight of shame
prompting my doubts?

But if I think
someone MIGHT read or listen,
then  it might be worth the effort.

If I think there is definitely
an audience of One
who cares to stop and really pay attention
then yes
I'll write it.
I'll speak it.

We take time
to read from our wisdom books.
We ask questions,
pausing to think
before we speak.
We tell stories from our journeys.
We laugh,
tears on the brink of our eyes.
We speak from the tulip bulbs
of the gratitude
about to spring from our *******.
We sigh
upon the fruit
of this interlude together.

You did not sing to me
in the cool of the evening
nor plant a lyric in my slumber at noon.

I did not breathe in the your joy
as I freely swung in the blue sky
peered upward in the pail of the balloon.
  
You were gone when my stomach tensed
scanning the spread sheet
my stocks trending downward.

Hammering on my patio project
sweat spilled from my brow.
You, absent from my now.

I blamed you for leaving me,
for my edgy mood and emptiness.
But it was I who slammed the door to the sweet  vapors
of your spirit as I absorbed myself
in the foggy persuasions of my evasions.

If we are obedient
we will be broken.

When I submit to my calling
as a human being,
if I am true to the ambition
of the puffy spear-shaped cloud,
to the voice of the smooth rock
formed as a heart,
I will stop
stay still
let their messages
sink through the borders of my brain
saturate the surging energy
within.

I will allow myself to be pierced
by her fears of being evicted  
I’ll feel the angst about her futility
before the indifferent landlords.

I will ignore my own heartache
about Uncle Jan’s fanatical raging
and instead
ask him about his son’s cancer
hug him when he breaks down sobbing.

Obedience
to the highest measures of my humanity
has its costs…

and rewards.

Hallelujah from the heart of Leonard Cohen
just took Leonard and his old scratchy voice
into my heart. What a gift my music app
just slung into my afternoon
to wake me from my late afternoon fatigue.

I do not take these tech gifts for granted
remembering when I would have to get the LP album
from off the crammed shelf and play it on a turntable.

Here in a moment of peace
I look up and see the trees
and the neighbor’s garden
beyond my windows.

And I thank God for this lovely peaceful moment
thank my old piano teacher
and the conductor of the Houston Youth Symphony
where I sang before my voice changed
and my parents who carpooled me from our suburb
to the old auditorium downtown
where my young mind and soul were nourished
by adults who cared for our young minds and voices.

Who knew that the gifts of these people
would spring up in my mind eight decades later
and mental images of Leopold Stokowski who directed us
at a grand concert in the Houston Music Hall.
He loved children but delivered high pitched hell
to the symphony players at rehearsals.