To say goodbye to this year
of our yearning is to experience
this holding on to our hope,
timeless and endless.
This has been a year of surprises
like those eternal early morning hours
with their rainbow in the light
rain and balmy sunlight.
It is passing by the hurdles
as the world watches
with its conscience intact.
How it registered
its protest
about elections
about wars
about the seasons of strife
about the dire desires.
How it commandeered
our cargo of cares
to see this multitude of pain
in the way it should be seen
in the hearts of mankind
as each man, woman, child
reeled from the torments
of sufferings
from believing in the lies of life
from lying in the beliefs about life
from living in the belief about beliefs.
The sufferings came about
wearing suits of various kinds
like the success on the sleeves,
the self-serving statements
about offering our prayers for the dead
our tender mercies for merciful murderers
and all those that justified our sad act
of inflicting pain on those who had always known
how is it to survive.
The world watched with its
conscience intact, not a crack,
not yet, as it said in cannot go on
with killing to kill all the obstacles
to life.
This is a moral imperative,
this announcement
of good manners
and right conduct
in this last day of saying
goodbye to the year
of our yearning
even if we are
the mightiest and
the strongest,
even if we own
half of the world
and its kingdoms as the devil promised
us.
This is the best way, and no other better
way, to say goodbye to this year of our lost hopes.
With the wars and terrors, in our words as in our deeds,
we start a new year right with this goodbye
to our irredeemable acts of sparing lies
to tell our truths, to free us of our fears at last.
Aurelio S. Agcaoili
Torrance, CA
Dec. 31, 2004
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