New Year’s Eve - 2024

 When the music’s over…turn out the lights.[1]

 

everything has its time,

every-thing comes to end

such is the nature of things

 

passing from the perpetual

actuality of the now, cresting

the concrescent wave

the sum of all that is

moving into the past

the eternal reality that endures

 

from the smallest grain of sand to the largest galaxy

from the tiniest ambition of a flea to the fantasies of dynasties

everything has its moment…and then those moments are gone…done

and all of us along with them, freed from our desires.

 

We mark the end of things on this final-day of the year as if life itself were coming to an end.

We dance the dance of ritual anticipation looking forward to our death, looking and backward at all that we have been; we herald our continuance with horns upon our heads, blowing pipes and cheering the expectation of rebirth…we celebrate the jubilee for the coming new year.

 

we come to the hard stop

and then we start anew

 

When the music’s over…we turn out the lights

flicker for a moment before we are renewed

 

I look back on the year and see the end of many things and people:

 

friends of mine, so many people

some who inspired me, some who reviled me

the vast number of whom knew nothing of me

but were nonetheless in relationship to me

as links together in the great chain of being

Jimmy Carter, Rickey Henderson, Shelley Duval, Quincey Jones…ordinary people leading ordinary lives, attending school, shopping for food, dancing at prayer, the victims of war and crime, accidents and indifference.

they met the hard stop…and continue, so shall we all,

become something new…therefore

drink a cup of good cheer, eat trifles and screw

ring the bell and drop the ball, this is the end

the end is here

            turn out the lights and shut the door

awaken tomorrow to a new world

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[1] The Doors, The Doors, Soul Kitchen, 1967, Elektra Records