The Medieval child, lauded over and acclaimed at the start of the year,
now will show its true colours to the world away
from its long since gone mother’s breast.
The old harridan who succumb to final old age
at the moment of delivery follows her charges fortunes now
as it gears up to become a teenager.
The January day is over and Janus rests content for another year
not to have to keep up the pretence of concern or anxiety
of what was before. His young responsibility, now old enough
to shake their own growing manacles, to work out whether to be kind,
compassionate, cruel, malicious, lacking pity on those that
let fireworks off in its honour on the arrival
of its birth and the death of its crow like mother, or just to be benign,
nothing felt across the world as its first decree on turning thirteen
is to order that nothing be changed.
It chooses the name ahead of its birthday
and stares into the mirror that Janus left behind
and smashes it to pieces with the end of its rod and staff,
the crown upon its head, takes the first slip sideways and reveals
the pain of growing older, which it vows to inflict upon its billions
of subjects in early revenge.
The young infant January knew no better,
never truly venturing beyond its castle keep
and fortress tall but now sees a glimmer of light
poking through a hole, tiny, insecure as a May Day parade in the hope
of better days to come, but blinding, searing its eyes to the beauty
the world can offer, a vision it might never see again
till the glory of a first daffodil presents itself to the twenty something year old
monarch and urges it to reflect upon is deeds.
You are a bitter sovereign in waiting,
being left alone at the moment of your birth
keeps you as cruel as a hunter armed with a stone
but with the possibility that you might be like Tiresias
and gain knowledge from seeing the world from every view
point.
Sleep well our January ruler, for in the morning
you inherit much wealth as the future Emperor with a
God’s will at your side.
Ian D. Hall