New Year's Day Madrigal

Here's the first poem I wrote this year, as part of my January Month of Poetry challenge. I always write an English Madrigal to see in the new year, have done for the past 12 or 13 years.

As for all poems I post here, you're welcome to reproduce them in any way you like so long as you credit me and don't pass it off as your original work. An attribution "from Breathing Just a Little blog" is sufficient.

New Year's Day Madrigal, 2025

The old year died in spitting puffs of light

the sky transfixed in roses and in gold

its pain all spent, its stories now all told.

The page is blank, the hand is yet to write,

the road ahead is waiting to unfold.

Too soon to say if darkness will drown light,

or morning will turn dry straw into gold.

The year is born, both terrible and bright

warm summer nights prefigure winter cold,

what sleep we'll lose, what diamonds we will hold.

May, stubbornly, we still reach for the light,

and sift through all the silt to find the gold,

and leave no songs unsung, no tales untold.