Naming the Day

I wonder in which season

I will die.

One is as fitting as the next,

as unthinkable.

This is what I think of

in the clean cold start

of the new year, the last

of the first

decade of a new

old millennium.

The year, the earth, are always

beginning and ending, as the days

spin ever faster

and time is the umbrella

that keeps the stars

from falling willy-nilly.

 Every year goes

the way of candle flame.

Every day, every life—begging

the question,

When the flame is blown out,

where does the light go?

Still the candle of my clay heart kindles,

this clean quiet is alive,

and everything that circles

is also still.

I feast on deepest hungers,

sweet white stars, the flesh of words

in the glowing season,

now fulfilled

and purged.

Naming this day as the beginning,

I choose to say I give

this year to quiet love. I will

down more starry water,

spill less

anger.

I wake asking

Where are the gifts I gave you,

where are your gifts to me?

I cannot hold them.

I cannot hold the answers.

All I can say is one day

not far from the present

when winter begins

to dream

its death

as the carnival parade keeps dreaming

an unthinkable trip up the skull

I recognize my birth,

inherit a new age,

blow out the candles.