The Resolutions begin themselves.
Again–then again–and in every year, the New Year’s exercise narrows its scope. The feline curiosities and appetites that are too far afield are discarded, in favor of those simple goalmouths that might be more readily fed. (Lose weight, lose vices. Lose reliance on paper crutches.)
What, someone asks, do you want your life to be known for now? To start: honesty, passion, romanticism, endurance, philosophical intelligence. To wit: a life occupied with meaning. Hitting the marks, meeting the resolutions.
Only, do I? Do I achieve my resolutions? Or are the things achieved by each December surprises that were never targets to begin with?
Gain weight: bricks fashioned of compressed understanding and experience. Build a home of these bricks and let one’s cats roam there, nosy and pouncing. Shelter in place where one’s tribe resides, on the grounds that peace and the consummation of resolution most artlessly begins in that collective (safe or unsafe, steady or riotous).
Wheat and water, hay and mud
Construct a layer, add resolve and hope
Compress, compress, firmly pack, set in sun
Now, there is Block One
Make a duplicate block
(Make a duplicate block)
Stack these tablets and form slab
The foundation for 2017
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mary june brown 