i am running into a new year by Lucille Clifton
i am running into a new year
Lucille Cliftoni 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 thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
MARGINALIA
1.
This is one of those beginnings where I’m both sure and unsure of what would happen to me. I know what I must do now, and I have a plan to do it, and yet it feels very much like I’m standing before a yawning abyss. Either I’m moving further forward towards the life I make, or I’m about to make a colossal mistake. It’s deliriously exciting and terrifying.
2.
Maybe all I can do at this point is forgive myself for what I’m about to do and what I will be unable to do, as the days come.
3.
I mean, that’s all the self is asking, right? To be loved and to be forgiven, and to be brave. The bravest I can be.
4.
Happy new year.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions Ltd., 1987. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
A landmark collection by one of America’s major black poets, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 includes all of Lucille Clifton’s first four published collections of extraordinary vibrant poetry—Good Times, Good News About the Earth, An Ordinary Woman, and Two-Headed Woman—as well as her haunting prose memoir, Generations.” (Source)
ABOUT LUCILLE CLIFTON
Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was rated one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. Clifton’s honors include an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a Lannan Literary Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shelley Memorial Award, the YM-YWHA Poetry Center Discovery Award, and the 2007 Ruth Lilly Prize. Lucille Clifton died… (more)
Read more poems by Lucille Clifton • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: forgiveness • renewal • reflection • Or browse the index
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Mel
Happy new year, T. May 2018 be a good, full, and happy year for you.
Stacie
Thank you for sharing this – it’s absolutely perfect!
Michelle in NYC
May you continue to keep on keeping on. We are all the same and we are forgiven before we even ask. None of us perfect enough or brave enough, and that is enough. Love.
AngelaUrsery
How perfect — and true. Thank you.
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