04.02.08

Lucille Clifton — “i am running into a new year”

Posted in Poetry at 9:00 am by The Lizard Queen

(for K, by request, with love)

i am running into a new year

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even forty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

—Lucille Clifton

published in Good Woman: Poems and A Memoir 1969-1980

2 Comments »

  1. Evil Bender said,

    Beautiful. Clifton says so much with so few words.

  2. [...] title of this post is from Lucille Clifton’s poem”i am running into a new year.” Posted under sweetie [...]


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