The New Year’s Burden

Video

by Catherine Davis

I will not, though I would, resolve,

As the New Year’s Eve comes on,

To do, not do, review, revolve

On the past year, how it has gone,

Taking not all, but still enough

(Seeing I had not much to lose)

Of what, for all my falling off,

Might have been mine, as then, to use:

But if I cast off heaviness,

This is my burden, none the less.

I would no more, as I have done,

Consider what the year will bring

But take the seasons one by one;

For, all in all, the heaviest thing

—Excepting only no more hope—

Is hope returning year on year:

Let me not give it now the scope

Of what I might do, for I fear

That if it cast off heaviness,

This is my burden, none the less.

I care no more for this <I might,

Whether it comes as would or should:

The first is nothing if not light,

Yet it has weighed me down for good;

And how much heavier, come to naught,

As I have found, the other is:

Lightness that ponders what it ought

Weighs like its own antithesis:

But when I cast off heaviness,

This is my burden, none the less.

I cannot, if I would, complain

Of a mean lot and curse my luck

(Though luck for luck, as gain for gain,

I cannot say that I’ve been struck

By how much mine exceeds) but hold

That this same luck has come to me

Never so empty-handed, cold,

As my more favored levity:

And if it casts off heaviness,

This is my burden, none the less.

Let others ponder, while they may,

Their wealth of possibilities;

But, as for me, since I must pay

For empty-headed-handed ease,

And since what comes will also go,

I find most hope in most distrust.

I make my burden lighter so

And bear the new year, as I must:

But if I cast off heaviness,

This is my burden, none the less.

Envoi to the Reader

I do not hope even to strike

Your fancy with my verse: No mask,

Symbol nor image nor the like

Encumbers it, as you might ask;

I make too plain my heaviness:

This is my burden, none the less.