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.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

– Naomi Shihab Nyr, “Burning the Old Year” 

Related Posts:

– “November Night” by Adelaide Crapsey

– “Incantation” by George Parsons Lathrop

– “A Lecture upon the Shadow” by John Donne

Categories: Poetry and Prose

Tags: fire, haunted, New Year, New Year's Eve, poetry, winter poetry