DPF / Cotter

For the future I’d like to meet in each moment and not know a second ahead of time, from Poetry, October 2016.

from Time Traveler / by Patrick Cotter

Now is before he was born. Days of air
shaken by bees, crow song probing eaves
and quays. Maker of the future a perfect
terra-cotta tense, a tense which sings.

DPF / Dao

For many wishes for a kind and gentle first day of 2017, from poetryfoundation.org.

from New Year / by Bei Dao (Zhao Zhenkai), translated by David Hinton

a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause

DPF / Avison

For wishing you a Happy New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year, from DPF and poetryfoundation.org.

from New Year’s Poem / by Margaret Avison

                Gentle and just pleasure
It is, being human, to have won from space
This unchill, habitable interior
Which mirrors quietly the light
Of the snow, and the new year.

DPF / Ovid

For the old year beginning to morph into the new, from Metamorphoses, translated by Charles Martin.

from Daedalus and Icarus / by Ovid

‘Though he may bar the earth
and seas,’ he said, ‘without a doubt, the sky
above is open; that is how we’ll go:
Minos rules everything except the air.’

DPF / Shockley

For the week, from poetryfoundation.org. The rest of the poem may be found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55670#poem.

from on new year’s eve / by Evie Shockley

       we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
       the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise

DPF / Johnston

For the week, from Poetry, December 2016.
from Poem for the New Year / by Devin Johnston
what have I read

how many words

what facts

statistics biometrics

what data aggregation

what news 

of wins and losses 

DPF / Clifton

For saying goodbye to family after the holidays, including goodbye to my sweet, wee little sis, from poetryfoundation.org.

from sisters / by Lucille Clifton

me and you be sisters.
we be the same.
me and you
coming from the same place.

DPF / Pfingston

For ladybugs, from poetryfoundation.org.

from December / by Roger Pfingston

Flies out of the tree
to try rum cake on a
plate of caroling cherubs.

DPF / Cummings

For a Merry Christmas or a happy whichever holiday you choose, from poetryfoundation.org.

from [little tree] / by e.e. Cummings

little tree 

little silent Christmas tree 

you are so little 

you are more like a flower 
who found you in the green forest 

and were you very sorry to come away? 

see i will comfort you 

because you smell so sweetly 
i will kiss your cool bark 

and hug you safe and tight 

just as your mother would, 

only don’t be afraid 

DPF / Moore

For the night, from The Night Before Christmas. 

from The Night Before Christmas / by Clement C. Moore or Henry Livingston, Jr.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.