Friday, January 04, 2008

Poetry Friday: Looking ahead


What I love about this poem is its sense of what is essential.

What am I holding onto that could be crackling in the fire?


Burning the Old Year

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

(Read the rest of the poem here, at the Poetry Foundation.)

Find the whole Poetry Friday round-up here, at A Year of Reading. And don't miss all the fun Poetry Friday trivia they've posted, such as this great list of all the Poetry Friday links from 2006 and 2007, courtesy of Susan Writes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So much of any year is flammeable. I love that...

Margaret in Minnesota said...

Wow. What a coincidence that you should post this poem. Last night I was digging through my "Bits of Lit" file (looking for those longlost notes from the Kimberly Hahn talk) and came across all sorts of weird stuff from college.

"I don't need this," I thought, and then I left it in the file and shut the drawer.

Now there's a good bad habit for me to considering breaking, now that it's a new year and all!

Thank you for another lovely poem, Karen. Wish I was looking out that window with you.

Sara said...

I love, love this one. But then I love a fire anytime.