new year's day 2025

Kids' weddings change the dynamic of celebrating holidays. A new family member means sharing holidays, specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every year since 2018 we have alternated Thanksgiving with our daughters' and son's in-laws and it works very well. 

The poem below reminds me of a Christmas celebration, when it was our year not to celebrate on December 25. We all converged at a lake house in northern Indiana shortly after the new year. The lake had frozen, ice fishermen were out in the early morning hours, and the sunrises started the days with a quiet pink hue. The very early mornings were so peaceful, so still. I could hear the ice fishermen's voices carry through the cold air as the sun crept up from its evening rest.

To the New Year

BY W. S. MERWIN

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

Such a peaceful poem capturing the quiet dawn of new beginnings, blending nature's calm with the promise of renewal.

Happy 2025, friends.