my birthday present

my birthday present
My awesome birthday present 1/26/11 (see story under my first post)

Monday, January 30, 2012

Forget resolutions, let go


i am running into a new year

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even forty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

—Lucille Clifton

published in Good Woman: Poems and A Memoir 1969-1980

My favorite lines are the last ones. When we undertake change, there seems to be some necessary apologies, regret, or  second guessing. The general consensus, with those I have discussed this, seems to be that such change is  a step in the right direction. Hopefully we will have the courage to let go of those old, self-limiting beliefs.

2 comments:

Loretta said...

I have loved Lucile Clifton for years. Now that I have reached eighty, I love my life, what I have learned and what I am learning--much of it from reading life and reading poetry. Sometimes it seems they are the same.

Loretta

marie-jo said...

The two words that strike me here are "forgive me." It's a journey, I think, especially for women who tend to be rough on themselves. Natural instinct, or learned from centuries of phallocentricity (the word may not exist, but I don't give a damn)? Hard to tell. But the journey to forgive oneself --even if there is little to forgive-- is worth taking, as it is a journey of self acceptance. A journey of accepting as well. Accepting things as they come. In other words, making no resolution might be from time to time... a good resolution.