That New

I love my tradition of searching for, selecting and sharing a poem for the new year. I found this one right about the time I found an actual piñata for us to break on Christmas Eve, a new holiday tradition for us in Mexico. Another wonderful serendipity about this poem for me is that New Year's Eve is the anniversary of my courthouse wedding to Christian. We are seven years in now, with two children new friends recently called "beautifully-spirited." As in any good marriage there are happy days, exhausting moments, laughter, routines, magic, sporadic date nights, arguments, forgiveness and the effort to remember to focus on us as much as our kids. The line "...and I want to bring it back to him, that new" resonates deeply. 

Wishing you all that feeling, that new, in 2017 and "all the lives you might live, each unnamed, until you name it."

That New

At the market today, I look for Piñata

apples, their soft-blush-yellow. My husband

brought them home last week, made me guess at

the name of this new strain, held one in his hand

like a gift and laughed as I tried all

the names I knew: Gala, Fuji, Honey

Crisp—watched his face for clues—what to call

something new? It's winter, only tawny

hues and frozen ground, but that apple bride

was sweet, and I want to bring it back to him,

that new. When he cut it, the star inside

held seeds of other stars, the way within

a life are all the lives you might live,

each unnamed, until you name it.

~ Susan Rothbard