New Year's Poem 2020

Each year, I write a poem on New Year's Day. I've been doing this a long time. For four years now, Conan Tobias of Taddle Creek has asked me to record the poem on January 1 so he can post it on the mag's website.


BOUNCING BALL 

A tour guide appears in your living room,

followed by a cluster of tourists

brandishing wooden spoons. You are sitting

in the old wing chair, reading a hardcover copy

of Marjorie Morningstar. The spirit of your dog

lies curled at your feet, doesn’t even lift

her adorable head to acknowledge

the visitors. You ask these people

not to get fingerprints on your walls,

not to clack their spoons so much, please,

not to draw swastikas on the synagogue,

to help themselves to some fruit, to

maybe have a cup of tea, to file out the back door

and never come back. You tell the tour guide

you are not a monument, a historical plaque,

a famous painting, a notable grave, a landmark.

You pull a couple of twenties from your pocket

and push them into his fist. “I will never forget you,”

you say. Outside, the winter fires are crackling.

A northern cardinal darts out from the smoke,

flourishes its wings, swoops toward the lake

to admire its own reflection. The horizon

undulates. The full moon bounces along it,

like the ball bouncing along the song lyrics

in one of those old cartoons, a technique

invented in the 1920s by Max Fleischer.

You dog-ear your page in the book, pull on

your grandfather’s galoshes, and hobble

after the moon, singing her perfect song,

becoming smaller and smaller yes smaller

as you disappear into the impossible

luminosity of tomorrow.

January 1, 2020

Stuart Ross