Monday's Poetry: "To the New Year"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

American poet W.S. Merwin penned this simple observation on the quiet and almost unnoticed arrival of a new year.  The breaking light of morning may seem no different than any other dawn, yet the symbolism of a new year beckons us with an ethereal sense of hope.  This new year, pershaps more than any other of recent memory, cries out for the solace of hope.  The hope before us is untouched, as the poet notes, and it is still possible.

Persevere.


To the New Year
by W.S. Merwin

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible