Her garb is sheer where hindsight’s aptitude
Can better tell the wherefore of her stance
The apple of her eye is the romance
And what we did or didn’t do, joy-grief
A tug-of-war within the human breast
As the old year dons her eternal rest
And we hail the unknown to hone Belief
Where the threshold of morrow soon will spill
A canvas pure as God to earthy will
Thought’s time-engrafted reach is far too small
Though we, with fumbling talk try to explain
What mortal knowledge cannot full-attain
…to understand the Giver of it all
Who reigns beyond the tick and tock of clocks
And what we deem as old or new but grace
Unchanging and unfailing; human race
Grapples with strings and moment-soldered locks
Where consequence is the certain capstone
Of everything that ever we have done
With scathing ignorance we hit ‘repeat’
In spite of good intention how we fall
Thus grace alone is our utter
all
As old and new mingle; a bittersweet
Vintage of retrospect; then love is blind
And kinder than it was when we were young
And surer of the words upon our tongue
Before the new grew older and the mind
Became a landscape riddled with smile-tears
Accumulated in Time’s thing called Years
© Janet Martin
