Chinese New Year Poem

Happy Chinese New Year

you make a mistake, erase it from the board.

you tire of dabbing the bottom of the paint cup.

you want a fresh start,

to break free from the same-old,

be brand new, but still be you.

China? They know how to work with

the same old thing,

have been at it

for five thousand years.

so every Chinese New Year’s,

there are reasons we clean our houses

from top to bottom, sweep away

last year’s bad luck with a broom.

what better time to wear new clothes,

make up with friends you’ve had fights with,

paint the front door with a fresh coat of red,

spread out bright flowers and bowls of glowing fruit.

most of all, spill by the hundreds to line streets for

parades of dragon puppets 50-people long,

looping and curving into a long-life ahead,

to see lions dance with roosters dance with monkeys,

and watch clowns mime, somersault, walk on stilts.

gongs and cymbals ring through icy air

warming the winter February here in Chinatown

into a new spring we can’t yet see, but can imagine.

even our ancestors celebrate,

and clap their hands from a faraway place.

there are reasons this happens over and over,

because no matter how old our culture grows,

each year is new to its people,

we are all young ones in this ancient world,

with hopes, ideas, heartbeats

that spark and pop

like a huge braid of firecrackers,

there are countless reasons to believe

that everything we are

will fill up the next year

to the brim.

~ Cynthia Gallaher ◦

Chinese New Year Poem