Regeneration

The annual ball is almost over,
the wheel has reached its final creak;
it should be well oiled by the countdown.

Balloons drift across ceiling and floor;
like cheap champagne, the tarnished
glitter dome retains some sparkle.

Spooked by eruptions of extravagant
fireworks, midnight sees the old year
gather her skirts. A pumpkin carriage awaits,

ready to drive into a foetal landscape
tightly curled around an intense longing
for warmth and sunlight and rebirth.

Aschenputtel sits by the fire toasting
her feet, not with champagne but sober
contentment that another year’s over.

Kim M. Russell, 1st January 2024

Warwick Goble’s Cinderella (Aschenputtel)
Cinderela Foto stock gratuita – Public Domain Pictures

Happy New Year, poets, and thank you for hosting on this New Year’s day, Sherry. Today at What’s Going On? we are writing about being good creatures.  

Sherry asks in a ‘time of profound change, how do we steady our feet on shifting sands? How do we navigate our personal journey, hold onto our peacefulness, our good hearts?’ and ‘How do we keep trying to be good creatures in such confusing times?’ She asks us to ‘link a poem, old or new, that arises from contemplating the year ahead’.

I’m sharing a poem I wrote yesterday for Black Bough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday.

36 thoughts on “Regeneration”

  1. A fitting poem for the end of one year and the beginning of the next one. I like the feeling of contentment that another year is over…so serene.

    Wishing you a happy new year, Kim!

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  3. I love her “sober contentment.” I feel the same, contented with my peaceful life, but soberly aware of the state of the world. Lovely to read you on this first day of the new year, Kim, as we begin another year of writing poems.

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  10. If only we could live happily ever-after. These weary feet are glad the year has ended and somewhere out there lies the glass slipper of hope for 2025.

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  15. I like the weaving of the fairytale into the New Year’s Eve celebration. It brings to mind the illusions we build to cover up reality. At least here, Cinderella seems to have a comfortable home by the fire.

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  16. May the Cinderella spirit walk with me, encourage me, change the things in me I need to change. Beautiful poem

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