{"id":166,"date":"2016-01-18T18:56:28","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T18:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=166"},"modified":"2016-01-18T18:56:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T18:56:28","slug":"poem-of-the-month-happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month: Happy New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year, we say<br \/>\nas if it really were a blank slate<br \/>\ncarte blanche<br \/>\nunlimited mileage<br \/>\nmoney-back guarantee<\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year<br \/>\nas if the old year weren\u2019t coming along<br \/>\nfor the ride, too<br \/>\nback-seat driver<br \/>\nsecond-guessing our left turns<br \/>\nshuffling around back there<br \/>\namong the old parking tickets and gum wrappers<br \/>\nhumming some familiar tune<br \/>\nwhose words escape<br \/>\nsomething about love, of course<br \/>\nsomething that rhymes<\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year<br \/>\nas if happy were the best wish<br \/>\nour only hope<br \/>\nthe last straw<br \/>\nthe big break<\/p>\n<p>But there is more in every year<br \/>\nthan happy alone can count:<br \/>\nwork, joy, travel, music, gardens, rain<br \/>\nfriends who root deeper, friends who turn away<br \/>\ngrowing children, dogs, dreams<br \/>\nwords, words<br \/>\nthat stay like red wine on white cloth<br \/>\nrecalling exuberance and chance<br \/>\na specific gesture<br \/>\nthat made all the difference<\/p>\n<p>Let us enter the new year aware<br \/>\nof the contents of our pockets<br \/>\nlast year\u2019s posies and pebbles<br \/>\nand probably some lint, too<br \/>\nbut with lots of room for fresh collections<br \/>\nof whatever marks our hearts<br \/>\nand makes us real<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/confetti-1113007_640.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-167\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-167\" src=\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/confetti-1113007_640-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"confetti-1113007_640\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/confetti-1113007_640-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/confetti-1113007_640.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;Happy New Year&#8221; was published in the anthology,\u00a0<em>Tapestries<\/em>, Gardner, MA, 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year, we say as if it really were a blank slate carte blanche unlimited mileage money-back guarantee Happy <a href=\"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=166\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-noellesickelswp","post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-allposts","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}