Kalends is the first day of every month in the Roman calendar, the start of a new lunar phase. Today is the second day of January, the Day 760 of the Daily Poems, and our poet Fiona Clark steps forward once again to see Kalends clear away the glitter of Christmas.
Kalends
The Kalends of January
enters briskly in a grey suit,
characterless as a civil servant,
clears away the glitter of Christmas,
makes a double-entry record
of the year gone by,
and of the disciplined days ahead
looking backwards
and forwards, with a steely eye.
Nature ignores him, intent
upon her dreaming sleep.This dat
has nothing to do with roots
or shoots, or the fire beneath
the frozen clod, the sparking of lambs,
the rousing of birds and buds
or the sun’s soft return
to stir in the earth’s dark womb
the year’s slow birth.
Nature lets the mizzle hang
in the orange light of a lamp-post,
leaves Kalends to his dreary tasks
of getting and spending,
of online sales and empty resolutions
while she slumbers on.
Fiona Clark