At year's end, it begins again:

The earth turns
and we turn with it,
knowing we are vulnerable
and knowing that is one thing
we may never change;
knowing that may be for the better

And at the center of the circle,
the eye of the storm,
the halfway point to anywhere,
us:

We hope for a white Christmas
and hope for some good news
and hope this will be our year, our time,
our best and luckiest and most--
what it will be
is what we make of it.

These cold winter nights are precisely drawn.
We find ourselves at the window, sitting,
a cup of tea gone cold, forgotten,
a hand idly resting on a lover's thigh,
poetry half-read, or perhaps only half-written;
we hear the brave wind crying as we cannot bear to do
and the trees' glass-coated branches rattling,
armored yet helpless,
fragile, beautiful, patient,
reminding us who we are, and who we might be, reminding us:

It begins again
at year's end.