Beers gulped into filled bellies
Rise from human gullies headwards
Fueling the gyrations of dancers, slick as eels.
Elsewhere, old men pour libations
Fluid to earth’s ancestral thirst
Liqueur and soil sound a sacred hiss.
With dawn’s hesitant light comes the first,
A new year of kisses to the lover's face.
And new beginnings for midnight masses,
Worshipful in solemn places of prayer.
Festive déjà vu bids dying year: ashes to ashes.
Rejoice, for He will many wonders perform
As cited texts float up in hallowed layers;
Litanies to an annual amnesia, same as before.
© Molara Wood
- A version of this poem was published on My Writing World in June 2005