Poem for the Ending of the Year
What do I say to you, you who know me
and know what I am capable of ? I can give you
nothing I have not already offered but the desire
to keep on offering it, not asking for return.
It is not a petty bargain that we make, not a totting up
of meaningless figures, more a delight in the giving,
the hope of acceptance. My hand is open to you.
The years move along, crawling and running,
matching our work and rest, our sluggishness,
boredom, our moments of laughter and our silences.
The end of the century begins its slow approach.
Neither wants to be in this position when it comes
yet know we will look back to say, we were happy then,
we were young, we knew what desire was.
Angela Topping 
Angela, this is a lovely poem, and quite an intriguing one too. Is it new?
The poem is clearly addressed to someone very special, though not necessarily a partner; the gift offered is surely love, but this could be of the platonic kind. The sentiment expressed belongs, I’d guess, to the penultimate decade of a century, though not necessarily the 20th.
It seems to me the poem recognises that happiness is sometimes more easily seen with hindsight, when the filters of memory have separated it from the rest, as when real gold is found gleaming at the bottom of a prospector’s pan.
I do hope ‘Poem for the ending of the year’ finds its way into a future chapbook or collection if it hasn’t already.
Paul
You are very perceptive! It was written at the end of the 20th century. It was in The Fiddl, so quite old on both counts. But the sentiments remain the same and the person is also constant in my life.