New Year's Eve

Here is a poem called "New Year's Eve" written by Carl Dennis. I love this poem all year round--it reminds me to examine what I think of as luck, good fortune or anything I attribute to myself or my Higher Power. For every case--whether car accident or cancer diagnosis--where we say, "My Higher Power was watching out for me," what are we really saying about God or our fellow human beings?

Here is the poem. And tonight is the night to reflect. Thank you for coming here to Love in the Time of Cancer to share our life. I wish you peace.

New Year’s Eve

However busy you are, you should still reserve

One evening a year for thinking about your double,

The man who took the curve on Conway Road

Too fast, given the icy patches that night,

But no faster than you did; the man whose car

When it slid through the shoulder

Happened to strike a girl walking alone

From a neighbor’s party to her parents’ farm,

While your car struck nothing more notable

Than a snowbank.

One evening for recalling how soon you transformed

Your accident into a comic tale

Told first at a body shop, for comparing

That hour of pleasure with his hour of pain

At the house of the stricken parents, and his many

Long afternoons at the Lutheran graveyard.

If nobody blames you for assuming your luck

Has something to do with your character,

Don’t blame him for assuming that his misfortune

Is somehow deserved, that justice would be undone

If his extra grief was balanced later

By a portion of extra joy.

Lucky you, whose personal faith has widened

To include an angel assigned to protect you

From the usual outcome of heedless moments.

But this evening consider the angel he lives with,

The stern enforcer who drives the sinners

Out of the Garden with a flaming sword

And locks the gate.

                                    --Carl Dennis