written on 12/30/18
This is the inevitable day
I’ve been waiting for.
The almost end of another year.
Twelve months in and very soon out,
almost the beginning of 2019.
The ‘not quite yet’
between now and then.
Next year still a bit off,
tomorrow’s tomorrow,
looming destiny’s horizon.
I liked 2018 –
the snowman stack of ‘o’s’ to make the #8,
the loops that figure in the figure eight,
two circles, enclosures sealing fate.
And now the ‘9,’
a half curve short of eight.
Time, a speeding train,
and all of us are proverbial maidens
tied to the railroad tracks.
I pray for a miraculous derailment.
But in the long history of time,
time has never gone off the rails.