! ! New Year Irresolution Poem by Michael Shepherd

‘So, what do you yourself wish for
this 2009? ..’ the microphone
is thrust; the videotape awaits…

and perhaps, there’s some golden link
between New Year wish and New Year resolution…
between the individual will and the universal..

meanwhile, the sceptic stands aside, at the crowd’s edge,
without a wish or resolution; wondering,
‘are things/is the world, a better place,
at this New Year than at the last? ’

But, who then to set some standard
by which to judge this increment?

Who can measure happiness in bulk,
or goodwill to all men? How do Goodness,
Truth, and Beauty fare,
at this ending of the year?

One criterion is certain: fewer now believe -
now Christmas is for sale itself, with
massive reductions in all departments
of the human store..

yet we manage, thank you, very well
without the concept God..

But let’s suppose – as some wise men have claimed –
that though man needs no god,
that God needs Man…

then God is one whole grisly year the wiser now
about this species, Man, whom He wound up
with His divine gold clockwork, and set down on garden soil…

now there’s a happy thought for 2009…
a wiser God about His human child..

But how, you ask, the proof?
the proof, dear reader, of this charming
whimsy, is entirely yours…
and only to be made in present moment;
where God forever dwells.