Happy New Year! The greeting may sound glib at the beginning of 2024. But joy expresses courage in the face of pain and flaunts hopeful resistance in the face of angry disrespect. I remind myself that Christ is born and risen, never to be eliminated from our ever-threatened world. So Happy New Year! Besides, we religious types may feel we’re supposed to express Lofty Thoughts of Deep Significance without fail. But as I move toward the end of my seventy-first year, I am more surrendered to the wisdom of failure. So I shall fail to begin the New Year by saying anything Lofty. Instead, here’s an account of a recent dream. (And a way to save some money.) Cheers!
Cheap Drunk
When they weren’t concocting—
Measure, shake, muddle, or stir—
They balanced weighty fragrant plates
On their tattooed forearms
And dashed to feed the hungry.
More hot plates waited on the bar.
Musical chairs left me standing
With my emptied bourbon glass.
I wanted to pay and go.
“Hey! Over here!” I wanted to say.
Then a still small voice whispered
beneath the gay clamor:
“You may be dreaming.”
My lips widen, my eyes narrow,
Then widen. Eyebrows fly up.
I didn’t even put down my glass.
I just woke up,
Dream-drunk and not a penny poorer.
Warm and prone in bed,
In the starry silence before dawn.
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