New Year’s Eve

We’re back at the beginning once again
– a bus loop or a joy-ride at the fair –
on our centrifugal journey round the sun,
this time and distance that we call a year.

No fixed stars or celestial dome,
our solar system’s not the bell-jar home
it used to be; we’re on a limb in space,
an orrery upon a mantelpiece.

From Earth, this tireless spinning orb that laps
at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour,
we do not seem to move at all; we are
like passengers in flight, woolgatherers…

A view from elsewhere in our galaxy
could show how we appear from the outside,
might illustrate the poignancy –
that we’re all in this together for the ride,

as round about the sun we go again
like travellers that don’t get off the train.