Saturday's Poem: Fragments for the End of the Year

rust

And what a year it has been, filled with sorrows and joys, hard-won insights, elusive daily-ness, even little bits of bliss. The other day I wrote a journal entry that might turn into a blog post; it's a random collection of images and impressions, things I lately learned, and random scraps...a kind of end-of-year inventory. Maybe I'll keep working on it.

But in the meantime, I came upon the following poem which does all that and more. I find a couple of lines a little mysterious--the last two, for example, which reflect on a story not told, but I think enough is given. Life is not always linear, logical, or fully illuminated. What we have at year's end are fragments.

FRAGMENTS FOR THE END OF THE YEAR by Jennifer K. Sweeney

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version

of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don’t know

if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring

itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas

as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders

the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.

The one we fly through and the one

we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills

the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.

Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest

not fully melted but enough. 

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.