Always as if for the first time, we watch
the fireworks as if no-one had ever
done this before, made shapes, signs
cut diamonds on air, sent up stars
nameless, imperious. And in the falling
of fire, the spent rocket, there is a kind
of nostalgia, as normally only attaches
to things long known and lost. Such an absence
such emptiness of sky the fireworks leave
after their festival. We, fumbling
for words of love, remember the rockets
the spinning wheels, the sudden diamonds
and say with delight “Yes, like that, like that”
Oh and the air is full of falling
stars surrendered. We search for a sign.
Elizabeth Jennings
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NEW YEAR’S EVE 2009: FIN
With good omen, there was the downpour.
“Ah but all this water is a symbol of prosperity to come,” we joked.
Cold, wet, gently mocking
The rhythms of nature rebukes these revellers in vain
There is no cure for the mania of youth.
Drums, frantic beats, writhing limbs, pumping muscles, sweat mixed with rain, and fervour, so much anticipation, to mark the passing of time.
The roar of the countdown sends waves of echoing shrieks from this mob so hungry,
So hungry for a climax
It began, the soaring spinning whirling spiralling explosions of light and colour, set off from great heights, so dazzling in the darkened stormy skies, greeted with approving cheers and such heated enthusiasm
Perhaps the damp would vaporise from my soggy clothes
And thousands of cameras, risking the wet, captured thousands more shots of such ephemeral moments, memories living now, dying now.
As the dawn slides into consciousness, inexorably, always, as, with all the certainty of existence, the time will pass and
Eat us all, remember that we will forget.
Always. We forget all the madness and euphoria, the joy, pain, sorrow, pleasure, punishment, all the suffering and the sweetness, and
that tender grinding ache
that life is.
