Magical Transition
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
How do you see the new year?
“We have a brand-new year!!!”
It’s January 1, 1949, Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Early morning gray.
I run outside.
Looking up at vast sky, I shout out loud—
“Nineteen Forty-Nine, think how big this number is!”
Small, sparse snowflakes sprinkle down.
(So gentle, who would guess it to be
Start of “Blizzard of ’49,” a killer storm.)
Nobody was around it hear my shouts;
Still, I wanted everybody to know
We’d had a big change; a fresh new year!
Stacked on top of
One thousand nine hundred forty-eight years!
That was amazing in itself.
Think of all that time.
I was 9 ¾ years old, and awed.
Somehow it was a Magical transition.
I ran home to tell Mama.
Adult and tired,
“Of course. It’s New Year’s Day.
Just bigger number.”
She wasn’t awed. No faulting her.
I had never had that experience before
And never have again.
I wonder how to view
This New Year
With awe and possibility?
Can I find that 9 ¾-yr-child somewhere
And be infused with her amazement?
Sparse snowflakes, thickened and increased,
Beginning of “Blizzard of ’49.”
Snow fell for days
With the storm recorded as seven weeks.
All that snow and high winds
Created conditions that killed cattle,
Closed travel, isolated people,
Resulted in tragedy for some.
Snow fifteen feet deep in our street,
Hard work, inconveniencing for adults,
We kids thought it fun and amazing.
May we see freshness.
Hugs,
Lin
Limerick:
Picture what you want from this new year.
Is there some adventure, some frontier?
Some dream to please you,
Each step is your clue.
And as you approach, it becomes clear.
The Mammoth Storm, 1949
