January

With a face set forward  and a face turned back,  I enter the January  to reflect as I bury  a year’s days now night-black  as dawn’s light draws me toward 

the blazing bright ahead  of unformed hours’ days  whose challenges I fear,  shrinking backwards from the year  whose dim horizon glows with rays  of opportunity, I dread, 

to be forced to confide  my callouses and scars  from the devil-year I knew  to the Light-Maker, You  who fill the velvet void with stars,  and in its blanket let me hide.