<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><br class=""></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The world asks, as it asks daily: </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured?</em></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I count, this first day of another year, what remains. </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Can admire with two eyes the mountain, </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Can make black-eyed peas and collards. </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Can make, from last year’s late-ripening persimmons, a pudding. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain, </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">then to the question. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old, </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and still they surprised. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea, </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. </span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Today, I woke without answer. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">don't despair of this falling world, not yet </em></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">didn't it give you the asking</span></em></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jane Hirshfield</div></div></body></html>