New Year Message: Facing 2005

Have a new year
because
180,000 people in Aceh, Indonesia, India, Thailand will not have
a new year
because
uncounted Iraqi children starved to death in the old year of liberation and
will never see
a new year
because
more than a thousand U.S. soldiers died in the desert without
a new year,
because eleven-year-old Karly Johana Suárez Torres was accidentally shot
to death by Colombian soldiers and Guatemalan union leader Julio Rolando Raquec
was assassinated on purpose and nameless, numberless Haitian prisoners were
killed by rioting guards, all in December, all of whom will never see
a new year.

Because you can,
have a new year.

Have the new year they cannot —
seize this year, bite it, chew it, swallow it, make it part of you
grab onto this new year and ride it, cowgirl,
squeeze this new year with both hands and mold it into something for yourself,
something steel as girders of a new building,
something fiery as molten sun at end of ocean day,
something soft as cat fur and with claws to climb
out of the depth of despair.
Have this new year.