{"id":266,"date":"2016-12-19T16:59:53","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T16:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=266"},"modified":"2016-12-19T17:08:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T17:08:23","slug":"poem-of-the-month-happy-new-year-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month: Happy New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year, we say
\nas if it really were a blank slate
\ncarte blanche
\nunlimited mileage
\nmoney-back guarantee<\/p>\n

Happy New Year
\nas if the old year weren\u2019t coming along
\nfor the ride, too
\nback-seat driver
\nsecond-guessing our left turns
\nshuffling around back there
\namong the old parking tickets and gum wrappers
\nhumming some familiar tune
\nwhose words escape
\nsomething about love, of course
\nsomething that rhymes<\/p>\n

Happy New Year
\nas if happy is the best wish
\nour only hope
\nthe last straw
\nthe big break<\/p>\n

But there is more in every year
\nthan happy alone can count:
\nwork, joy, travel, music, gardens, rain
\nfriends who root deeper, friends who turn away
\ngrowing children, dogs, dreams
\nwords, words
\nthat stay like red wine on white cloth
\nrecalling exuberance and chance
\na specific gesture
\nthat made all the difference<\/p>\n

Let us enter the new year aware
\nof the contents of our pockets
\nlast year\u2019s posies and pebbles
\nand probably some lint, too
\nbut with lots of room for fresh collections
\nof whatever marks our hearts
\nand makes us real<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Happy New Year” was published in the anthology,\u00a0Tapestries<\/em>, Gardner, MA: 2004.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"confetti-1113007_640\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year, we say as if it really were a blank slate carte blanche unlimited mileage money-back guarantee Happy […]<\/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-266","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\/266","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=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}