On a New Year's Eve Poem by June Jordan

On a New Year's Eve

Rating: 4.5


Infinity doesn't interest me

not altogether
anymore

I crawl and kneel and grub about
I beg and listen for

what can go away
(as easily as love)

or perish
like the children
running
hard on oneway streets/infinity
doesn't interest me

not anymore

not even
repetition your/my/eye-
lid or the colorings of sunrise
or all the sky excitement
added up

is not enough

to satisfy this lusting admiration that I feel
for
your brown arm before it
moves

MOVES
CHANGES UP

the temporary sacred
tales ago
first bikeride round the house
when you first saw a squat
opossum
carry babies on her back

opossum up
in the persimmon tree
you reeling toward
that natural
first
absurdity
with so much wonder still
it shakes your voice

the temporary is the sacred
takes me out

and even the stars and even the snow and even
the rain
do not amount to much unless these things submit to some disturbance
some derangement such
as when I yield myself/belonging
to your unmistaken
body

and let the powerful lock up the canyon/mountain
peaks the
hidden rivers/waterfalls the
deepdown minerals/the coalfields/goldfields
diamond mines close by the whoring ore
hot
at the center of the earth

spinning fast as numbers
I cannot imagine

let the world blot
obliterate remove so-
called
magnificence
so-called
almighty/fathomless and everlasting
treasures/
wealth
(whatever that may be)

it is this time
that matters

it is this history
I care about

the one we make together
awkward
inconsistent
as a lame cat on the loose
or quick as kids freed by the bell
or else as strictly
once
as only life must mean
a once upon a time

I have rejected propaganda teaching me
about the beautiful
the truly rare

(supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
is beautiful
for instance)
but
the truly rare can stay out there

I have rejected that
abstraction that enormity
unless I see a dog walk on the beach/
a bird seize sandflies
or yourself
approach me
laughing out a sound to spoil
the pretty picture
make an uncontrolled
heartbeating memory
instead

I read the papers preaching on
that oil and oxygen
that redwoods and the evergreens
that trees the waters and the atmosphere
compile a final listing of the world in
short supply

but all alive and all the lives
persist perpetual
in jeopardy
persist
as scarce as every one of us
as difficult to find
or keep
as irreplaceable
as frail
as every one of us

and
as I watch your arm/your
brown arm
just before it moves

I know

all things are dear
that disappear

all things are dear
that disappear

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Me Poet Yeps Poet 28 December 2015

The trend has been set.......LONG poetry but APART FROM YOU WHO WILL READ IT? ? ? So many have started to post it I shall not lag behind long one I shall post too ere you all say poet eh poet em poet yep poet you know no poetry that won't be Glad i managed to read half of thee balance in dose two tomorrow

1 2 Reply
Manonton Dalan 28 December 2015

very long poem... I wish I could write like that

0 0 Reply
Susan Williams 28 December 2015

I love the repetition of certain lines within the poem and the repetition of the last two lines- it gives roundness, an aspect of repeated cycles like the seasons: all things are dear that disappear

21 0 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 28 December 2015

Wonderful and intriguing poem giving an inference that change is basic quality of life and with passing of time every thing changes too. Thanks for sharing.10 points.

2 0 Reply
Ramesh T A 28 December 2015

With the year coming to an end all things dear disappear for the new things to appear in the New Year!

2 0 Reply
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