Get ahead.
Get a head;
use the one on your shoulders.
Start anew.
Start a new
year, another year older.
It’s easy to make resolutions when half your life must change.
It’s easy to move things in your mind and see them rearrange.
It’s day-to-day to make a plan,
it’s harder yet to make a stand,
but it would be hardest of all to stay the same and sane.
Well, so much for finishing all the things I was going to finish this year.
There are about two-thousand and twelve lines left on this list here.
But tomorrow will feel about the same
and we’ll keep doing what we need each day
and some things don’t matter anyway.
So let the winds of time carry off the chaff and leave the tasks we must hold dear.
Your child is not a fashion show.
Your job is not to keep her from ever crying.
Your success shan’t be measured in how well she sleeps.
Your child is a will and a soul.
Your job is to show her how to be whole.
Your care is real and your love is deep.
Now you are eight months
and then you’ll be eight years
and now you’re the youngest
but then you’ll likely be the oldest.
But we won’t worry about then,
because now is enough.
Now we’re both here
but with places to go
and lessons to teach
and lessons to know.
But don’t you worry about that,
because I worry enough.
Every chord’s been played and combined with lyrics.
No sooner do I think of a song but I hear it
on the radio in someone else’s words.
There are no more firsts, only seconds and thirds.
Language evolves like new strains of germs
but there’s no new sounds (except those made by worms)
and this poem is just words that you’ve already heard
but I’m pretty sure it’s a new combination of words.