The arbitrary year opens into its new morning

That is no different from the old year's, the few

Last birds still leaving again their bare nests

And abbreviated songs to perch in shadows

Of brief light, or picking through the frosted

Grass for seeds that weren't there yesterday

As if this today were something other than

The same old and cold continuing season.

What we name this new year does not make

It so in any way that matters to the shadows

Under the same chilled light, the empty trees,

The birds whose old hunger is nothing new.