The first month is melancholic reluctance
uncertain expectancy, all hope foreboding.
A blanket grey cumulus waiting to reveal
Heaven’s offerings in this new year.

We mourn the passing of family and feasting
and torture ourselves in covenanted new rituals,
sacrificing happiness for a different pathway
in search of fresh purity, we flee past sins.

Why always self-loathing when January dawns?
Why this violent self-revolution?
Why the craving for renewal in the wizardry
of quick-fix cures for our diseased past?

What of gratitude, kindness and continuity?
What of love and wisdom inherited from our histories
that ripple forward in that comforting echo
of friends and family who remain within us?

The constancy of garnet is January’s true transition.
The stubborn goat sure-footed on the mountain-side,
unmoving unbending despite storms that unsettle
as another year deepens the roots of our knowledge.

In God Janus’s beginning, we celebrate things past
that we clasp and hold aloft in triumph.
Our stalwart anchor grips strong, made ready
by challenges vanquished in bygone years.

To be buffeted but stalwart is the true new hope.
Another circle on the trunk ringing our heart of oak,
wisdom sprouts green sprigs in winter’s depths
to breathe new life into a maturing love.