The Scapegoat

Why

do we give

such power

to a year,

as if the date

on a page

suddenly yields

to us all

the strength

and will

to do

what we were

unable,

unwilling,

unmotivated

to do

just

one day

earlier?

Even

one minute

earlier,

as if

the stroke

of midnight

and

the loud gong

of the bell

wakes us

from some

hypnotic state

that we were in

and now

we are

somehow alive

and free

from the prison

of

the former year.

When

will this year become

the bars

and

the lock,

the magician

with

a clock,

the lying soothe sayer,

putting us all

back

into

the trance,

the prison,

the hoax

of a year

that again

needs

to become new

for us

to become new?

Is it March

that we complacently

slide

into the grip

of 2019,

or

is it fall

when

leaves

begin

to litter

the

dying grass

and we can see

that

the many days

we promised ourselves

would be

different,

now

lay behind us?

So,

we curse

the year

rather than ourselves.

We make her

the scapegoat

that

we lay upon

our sin

and sprinkle

with

our guilt,

and

drive out

toward a

cliff

when

we don party hats

and

the year

again flips.