In Praise of January

a poem about the first month of the year

I have been tinkering with the poem below all month, trying to get it right. I’m not sure I’ve succeeded entirely, but this being the last day of January, I thought I’d share it with you as a means of marking the passing of the month.

Despite its thirty-one days, January always seem to fly by, at least to me. Here in Maine it is often a very cold month - windy, snowy, icy. I kind of love it. I mean, I wouldn’t want twelve months of it. But January always feels like a bit of a test - of my grit, and of the wisdom of my outerwear purchases.

January is a no nonsense month, after the flurry of holiday preparations and celebrations. No cards or gifts. Just keep the driveway and sidewalks clear and sanded, charge those snowblower batteries, and check to make sure the furnace is running as it should. Maybe make a big pot of soup.

Spring is still a long way off, but making it through January is an important milestone. The days are getting longer; soon the sun will feel warm again. And in the meantime January has scoured the slate clean so we can begin again.

---

In Praise of January 

December's end is muffled in snow, 
Stuffed with cookies, festooned 
with lights and ribbons to distract us 
from the coming death of another year

Christmas, tipsy and overfull,
trips into New Years Eve 
sending us face first and stunned 
into a fresh, icy world

Our holiday frivolities can seem desperate,
looking back over shoulders
from that first week in January,
at those days of paper and parties

I have spent all my years 
in a northern latitude
where the new year comes
with a whip crack of arctic air

I welcome the austerity of winter,
the brittleness of everything,
the cold that stings and shatters,
and draws my gaze away from the old year

Watch your footing on the ice, it says
Don't forget your mittens
Are the emergency blankets in the car?
Another  layer might be wise

I need January to slap my face
with a frozen wind, to wake me
from the dozing days of late December,
with a shake, not a kiss

I find it hard to imagine
a new year born in soft air,
in sunshine, with flowers
But I have been told it exists

Here January blows away
the old year, or freezes it hard 
in a coating of ice that will trickle
away unnoticed come spring

---

We’re into Week 4 of The Public Domain Poetry Project and we’re having lots of fun using the lines of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, “Travel,” as poetry prompts. We made it to the end of the first stanza this week. There’s still plenty of time for you to join us. And the previous weeks’ posts are still available if you want to get caught up.

Week 4

Thanks for being here, everyone!