Pardon me for conflating holidays,
but all I want for the new year is voice;
my voice, that which I've refined through the maze
of three decades of life; it's been my choice:
to remain silent, though the voice was there,
or to speak too sudden when it was not –
but I've learned the depth of the platform where
I stand to speak, where I'll die to emplot:
coordinates from the chorus, I mean, the void,
where truth rests in echoes and puddles shine
with the brown silt that the first men employed
to siphon a meaning from the mind's mine:
This new year is truly a new decade,
and old voice will savor new meanings made.