Poem A

We never really bothered with New Year

– Or Valentine’s day, come to that –

But always we were ambivalent about New Year.

We did go to parties when invited,

It would have been churlish not to.

Left to ourselves we would take a drink

At midnight

To see off the old year, acknowledge the New,

And that was it.

We had been war children,

Had known the precariousness of life

At a very early age.

Remembered when New Year had brought dread

Of what might happen in the months to follow

And was a time of desperate prayers instead.

It was some time after the war

With family re-united

That my Aunt Rhoda determined

I should experience a “proper” New Year;  –

Steamrollered my Mother into allowing me

To travel to Trafalgar Square

With her & Uncle John in their car.

It was exhilarating to be in that melee of people,

Scary to be in a stationary car

Rocked by exuberant revellers.

When the clocks struck midnight

And the bells pealed out

And the haunting sound of fog horns

Resonated from the river,

Aunt Rhoda turned to Uncle John and softly said

“This is the year I shall die.”

She did not intend that I should hear,

But I did.

And it was.

So no, we have never really bothered,

Much, with New Year.

At last year’s New Year

For the very first time

We didn’t even bother to stay up.

We went early to bed.

– Strange, that.

As if subconsciously we knew

It would not be a year to welcome

But of course, that was something

We did not know.

Now January comes again

But the beginning of it holds none of the memories

That overwhelm me on other anniversaries,

When I remember our love

And how we celebrated it.

I am glad now

That we never bothered with New Year.