(Here’s a beauty by my friend Caroline Donnola)

The fog plays on memory,
dispersing my sense of time
like a momentary lapse of judgment.

My mother’s cousin

now deceased,

her phone no longer answered

when I call to wish her Happy New Year.

It’s day three of resting

and I can’t remember the last time

I just kept still—

not working, producing, accomplishing. 

Reading books for hours on end

listening to my favorite Beethoven

taking walks by the water 

fixing collard greens and black-eyed peas

for the sheer pleasure

of the chopping, the stirring

the smells. 

No rushing from place to place

No crossing things off my list. 

It’s weird, relaxing, calm.

When I stroll down

to the Narrows

I see that the fog is shifting

and the bridge is playing tricks on me—

Both here and gone,

like Cousin Elizabeth

who was always my mother’s favorite, 

and comforted me

when my mother passed. 

The sound of the horns

as boats slip by and under the crossing,

the softness of the air,

wet from a long day’s rain. 

I don’t know what

this year will bring. 

The sheer bigness

of all that’s gone wrong

too great to let in. 

So I try to focus

on what is possible

and what is sweet. 

This. 

All of this.