i am running into a new year by Lucille Clifton

MARGINALIA • SKIP TO THE POEM

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.

i am running into a new year
Lucille Clifton

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 thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

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This poem appeared in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions Ltd., 1987. Shared here with profound gratitude.

Read more works by Lucille Clifton • Find books by this poet • Or view my library 

Explore poems in pursuit of: growing old • leaning into joy • prayers we tell ourselves • Or browse the index

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