The Garden of Verse: Watching 'the Wheels Go Round and Round' in the Trying Days of the Third Millennium

        I got around to the idea of New Year's resolutions a few days after the current annus novus -- or annus mirabilis (year of miracles) began. 
         And decided to use a small collection of marvelous statements of various levels of familiarity that were running in my head, or put on paper somewhere, as the key ingredients in a poem of resolutions to remind myself that a new number has actually appeared in the last column of humanity's bookkeeping. 
           I'm referencing Whitman, quoting Thoreau and critic Harold Bloom, and slightly misquoting from "Les Miserables" here, among the classics. And borrowing from John Lennon and the band Tears for Fears from among the pop moderns. 
           Everywhere we turn, we are living in a palace of wonders, of infinite dimensions. 
          And just because human beings are among these wonders, and wholly capable of appreciating the life that goes on both within us, and without us (borrowing again), doesn't mean we have the right to go around destroying things.  

My poem "Late Resolutions," posted below, appears along with two others, plus marvelous poems from some 30 other poets, in the latest edition of Verse-Virtual.com. 
Please take a look at the February issue at http://www.verse-virtual.com/poems-and-articles.html



Late Resolutions in the
Court of Naked Appeals (and Borrowed Quotes)

Given that:
"Master of the [Court]/ Isn't worth my spit!
Hypocrite and toady/ and inebriate!" (Apologies to "Les Miz")
That only the great poets wrestle
with what it means to be human: viz Whitman,
per Harold Bloom: "As Adam early in the morning,
Walt is the unfailing God-man, our androgyne." 
 
That our priorities may at times be reversed,
viz. Thoreau: ''Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner,
but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?'''      
and yet what requires our greatest attention is that which is always before us.
 
And that contemplation of these homely universals 
may require a wide-angle lens,
viz. John Lennon: "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
I really love to watch them roll."
 
Resolved:
To take a walk outdoors everyday this winter,
even when it's sleeting gobshite.
 
To demonstrate in the court of Personal Appeals
my undying affections to those who continue
to bless both others and myself with displays of humanity and excellence, 
and to accept, with patience, that "everybody wants
to rule the world." (per Tears for Fears)
 
To look both ways before crossing the bridge of time
when we come to it, as we always will.
To hold the page when the language of music
takes hold of me and patiently turn each leaf of the score on cue.
To strive to be one of those who, after we give the
land back to the indigenous, they let stay.
 
To love 'nature,' whatever is meant by that most elastic
of terms, even when it can no longer love me back.
To love those who always have.
 
[More at http://www.verse-virtual.com/robert-knox-2019-february.html     ]