The New Year

dates have lost their days
and weeks their months
but friendly reminders of
"Happy New Year"
punctuate the passage of Time
with a dot and a cap
marking an ending and a beginning
and wake me into a region
of no-light- and -no -darkness

I ope' mine eyes
and look around to find
the new-born slough
of the old Time Snake, wily,
vilely, hanging from a fissure
in the garden wall
calling to mind the growing crack
in my central hall

At a closer look I find
three, four hundred checks
interspersed with bars
a dozen or more

I close my eyes and wait
for the twilight to clear
and the sanke to appear
marking the birth of a day
or night

I see I live and now I die
Life is an alias of Death
and living an alibi.