New Year station

It seems to me
on this train ride called life
every New Year arrives
steaming and station-like

I first feel it from a distance
rushing towards me
gleaming with untold promise
my skin prickly with anticipation

my heart weighed down
by a strangely unexpected sorrow
realising suddenly that
the moments had slipped past me
unnoticed, like the landscape
had rushed past in a blur
that could hardly be called life

and then, it is here
this station so optimistically
and bravely called New Year
with its brightly lit pause
of cacophony and celebration
its perilous air of adventure
its heady attraction of journey

in its steamy air of forgetfulness
I quickly disembark regrets
embrace in welcome
oncoming hopes and remap
my course for a destination
that resolutely stays unknown

as I chug off into landscapes
unexplored, my compass uncertain
I wonder about storms
now sleeping in the mist
and dreams that taste of tomorrow
and if the next New Year
will find a new, improved me
or find me at all.

~~~