I have turned the lights off.
Winter Holidays are through.
Very little remains undone except
those thoughts of you and you.
New Year enters unannounced
by those who matter most:
Little ones, exhausted by gobbling
and unwrapping and imagining.
And then the In Memoriums begin.
Trailblazers, leaders, friends, family,
So many great lives now taking
their marks in the hereafter.
So I am planning my resolutions list,
and I will need help completing it.
Nothing can be done alone,
so says Hesse’s “Allein”
The implication is fix yourself
before trying to fix others.
“That’s my resolution,” I say
as I pack up the stockings and
dump the grenadine.
Allein by Hermann Hesse
“Es führen über die Erde
Straßen und Wege viel,
Aber alle haben
Dasselbe Ziel.
Du kannst reiten und fahren
Zu zweien und zu drein,
Den letzten Schritt mußt du
Gehen allein.
Drum ist kein Wissen
Noch Können so gut,
Als daß man alles Schwere
Alleine tut.”
English translation by a reddit user:
"All over the Earth Streets and Ways wend But they all have the same End. By two or three you may ride and roam, But the last step you take alone. Thus there exists no Truth as good as this known then that all that is hard is done alone."
Word Play 