(but sharing a bowl of hot porridge with whomever comes)

For sixty-five times, that I’m sure about anyway,
this earth has made it all the way to the back of the sun and returned.
Sixty-five times, that I’ve seen for myself, and other,
reliable sources say it has done the very same thing for eons,
millennia piled against millennia. Not
technically, scientifically forever, but as forever and always as matters
to the gnats of humanity that we actually are. It’s ridiculous
to suggest that I cannot imagine a time when it wouldn’t.
If it didn’t then yes, certainly, I wouldn’t imagine it.
None of us would. This dark morning
I’ve opened the window blinds, pulled back every curtain,
and stand with my palms pressed
around a chipped, rinsed-out-not-washed mug
brimming with a coffee of elixirs and promises.
The red plaid robe I couldn’t throw away when my mother died
is knotted sloppily at my waist, mended one more time
where my fingertips wear through the flannel.
This is the second night in the same sweatpants,
and even the family dog has declined to join me so early. Still,
I face east like a prayer,
anticipating, hoping, depending
on one more new year. One more benchmark
of what we’ve been, where we’re going,
and who we are.

©2021 Vera S. Scott