Pat Jones

Wring Out the New

by Brendan Beary

I’ll never gain a far enough remove
To hope to understand it, I’m afraid:
The champagne-fueled compulsion to improve
With New Year’s resolutions rashly made.
In northern climes it’s prudent, one presumes,
To hunker down against the wintry storm
Instead of being forced like hothouse blooms;
We’re better pruned and trained when days are warm.
This petty fault, that tendency (or lapse),
Might well be shed to blaze some straighter path
In austral lands or tropic zones, perhaps,
Where New Year’s Day comes free of winter’s wrath.
Resolving and evolving’s fine for them,
But here, though, plus ça change, plus c’est la même.

Brendan Beary lives in Maryland and his poems have appeared in the Washington Post Style Invitational, Lighten Up Online, and the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form (OEDILF) project.