Old Year

 I love this poem. Love it.  It's like a prayer to end the old year, asking the Lord forgiveness for our wrongs, and for help in the new year to walk a better path.  A New Year's resolution in a poem. Just lovely.


I want to close the old year, Lord--
All finished like a book;
Turn eyes from smudged and dog-eared page,
Bar any backward look.

There are some scores I marked to pay--
Some large--and some are small;
The grief they caused--I'm sorry, now,
Forgive me for them all.

Then place a new book in my hand,
New pages I can read;
And give me from it deeds to do,
And thoughts of other's need.

And when its pages I must close,
Pray let there be no grief;
But let my hands turn happily
The new book's last clean leaf.
                      ~Clara Hood Rugel