New Year

At New Years Eve
we’ll stand in the back garden
to watch sparkles and flares,
listen to the bangs and screeches
of city and county fireworks.

No scent of cordite will mar or jar
the sweet rural air.
Nothing shall destroy the calm of the countryside,
the homes of small animals and birds.
There’ll be no sky lanterns to pollute the night.

We’ll reflect on 2020
—the Covid year—
and be glad to see the back of it.
The coming year will be better,
it couldn’t be worse, we’ve decided.

We’ll think of lost friends,
unhappy families,
the marvellous NHS;
of sights previously unseen,
unthought-of happenings
and poor planning that made the year dire.

Despite all, we are still human
and so, full of hope.
Will a breath of snow whisper past?
Will frost tweak at nose and toes?
No matter what, the ceiling
of the country celebrates time,
people, purpose.
We’ll stand in the back garden
and sip spiced hot wine.

Christmas, and there’s
no snow.
Rain floods runnels,
banshees howl about the house.
Trees lurch, screaming,
torrents teeming,
roads dammed
across the land.

Close to New Year, and there’s
no snow. No icicles.
Nationwide: the floods.
And on we go to
see the wraith of
seasons gone,
the phantom here,
the ghost of those to come.

New Year, and there’s
no snow. No icicles. No frost.
Savage spectre of what is lost.
Seasons change.
Extremes occur:
spring’s like summer
used to be. Summer’s short.
Autumn comes early.

And so it goes from year to year
the seasons change, become austere.
Those who live with constant jeers
say this: until we do something,
until we care,
it’s our world, our earth,
whose fate
we share.

I am posting this for Claudia’s Change & Turns at dVerse Poets