The new year is a half hour old. Fireworks are still popping, crackling, and booming, even though fireworks are illegal within the city limits of my town. Maybe I’ll get to sleep before dawn. But for now, sleep is unlikely, so I might as well write. The Muse often won’t let me sleep until I’ve met her demand to write.

Helen Hunt Jackson, “New Year’s Morning” (1892)

Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

Every new year dawns with hope. Hope for better things. Hope for health, especially this year. Hope for happiness. There are so many things to hope for. Each person has his or her own. I hope 2021 will not disappoint us, the way 2020 did. But hope always remains.

I’ll leave it to Emily Dickinson to sum it up.

Hope is the thing with feathers (254)

Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.