Green Springs the New Year
(First poem for the New Year 2019)
It grows, it grows I want to sing;
this Hoya cutting at my door;
well, all three cuttings; one struggling
more so than the other two, which have
sprung so gorgeously, greenly into life
as we slip into the New Year.
It seemed right there should be one
loitering, one which held onto the force
of the year just gone with its unique
ups and downs.
Hoya are long-lived plant life. These
Hoya have the company of a kitsch cat;
the bewildered look on her metal face
was not to be resisted and in the presence
of my sister, who loathes cats, I purchased her.
She is the first thing that greets me at my
back door this, and every morning. The Hoyas
will be moved on to more suitable Hoya
growing cavities within the house. They
could take over the house because who
in their right mind would want to cut
them back. And so the cat goes on
looking bewildered at the strange things
I do year in, year out. Her head on a spring,
I make sure she nods her approval. At a push
she could maybe wave her head in disapproval,
a much harder thing for this cat to do.
And walking into my New Year,
greeting cat, who gives me such hope.
(This cat does have a name. It is Noeline;
and yes you’ve guessed it, for my sister).
By the time next Christmas and New Year
arrive, how much will have changed,
or should that be – how much the world
will have again changed? Much more so
than three struggling Hoya cuttings springing
greenly and gorgeously into life. And life
will have ways other in which we will remember
both the sad and the beautiful.
Benita H. Kape © 2.1.2019
benitakape 