Greeting the New Year in Poetry



Let's start with an epitome:

Kobyashi Issa
New Year's Day

New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

Tr. Robert Haas 

Then we have the inimitably cheerful Thomas Hardy


and, of course, what would a change of year be without

For those making resolutions we have Rainer Maria Rilke's
Archaic Torso of Apollo


My own haiku:

The new year comes in
the old goes out; nothing stops
the baby's crying.

(I claim it for my own--but I will readily say that it is so engrained in memory that I may have stolen it from some great writer of haiku and forgotten.  If anyone reads this and recognizes the real author (if, indeed, I am not he), please let me know.)

Then we have Robert Herrick sending

And we can depart the subject where we entered--with Issa's quiet wisdom

New Year's Morning
Kobiyashi Issa 

New Year's morning:
the ducks on the pond
quack and quack.
 




Comments

  1. FredDecember 31, 2010 at 11:03 AM

    Steven,

    Nice collection. I don't recognize the haiku, but Issa has a spring haiku about nothing changing.

    Spring begins again,
    Upon folly,
    Folly returns.
    -- Issa --

    ReplyDelete

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