Corey
Eastern Standard
by Joanne Corey

As the third millennium turned,
our family toasted with sparkling cider
at midnight Greenwich Mean Time,
seven in the evening for us,
in deference to daughters’ bedtimes.

With our children grown, the two
of us honor that tradition,
clink glasses, savor the past,
sip, hope for the future,
in evening dark as midnight.

PHOTO: Bubbly (fruit juice) and glasses ready for 2016.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: As the year 2000 began, midnight celebrations across the world were broadcast live on television. Realizing that the top of the hour was always midnight somewhere, we decided that we would celebrate at midnight GMT, so that we could all observe our usual bedtimes. We still love this quiet way to celebrate the new year.

corey1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Corey lives and writes in Vestal, New York, where she is active with the Binghamton Poetry Project, Sappho’s Circle, and the Bunn Hill Poets. She recently completed a weeklong residency/workshop with Mass MoCA and Tupelo Press in North Adams, Massachusetts, as part of the inaugural group of nine poets in this new collaboration between the Museum and Tupelo. They named themselves the Boiler House Poets after the soundscape installation in which they recorded this video. Ms. Corey chose to read “Lessons from Mahler,” which was written for the Silver Birch Press “When I Hear That Song” series.