Those pages never written

This poem by Rhina Espaillat really speaks to my feelings on this New Year's Eve:

 

Too       

December thirty-one: too rich a spread,

Too much of what there is, too strange, too bright,

Too many dishes tasted that instead

Of filling, feed the hunger, every bite

Promising to be perfect – but not quite;

Too much to want, when nothing but excess

Will do, spiraling skyward like a kite.

And too late now to wish it any less.

 

Too many pearls on gold silver thread

For needlework begun by young delight

Finished by duty, if not left for dead:

This tapestry, that kinship starved on spite,

Those pages never written, safe and white

with cowardice,unwilling to confess

What the light does that makes the dark contrite.

And too late now to wish it any less.

 

Too many books meant to be read, unread

On shelves youth stocked when it believed it might;

Too much meant to be said but left unsaid

That wanted saying when the time was right;

Too much said wrong, too much held close and tight

That should have been let go, have been largess

Flung free at once and never kept from flight.

And too late now to wish it any less.

 

Face in the mirror, reading by cold light

The lines that spell your history, come bless

What one more year decrees this final night.

Much too late now to wish it any less.

 

 by Rhina Espaillat