L'Chaim to 2017

Dear departing friend on your final spin
Here’s to 12 months of grit, struggle & accomplishment
The way we were worn out
Reborn and burned out 
The way the world smoked
And the globe rolled
It was a year of swearing 
in a new form of American President 
A year of maniacal 
flexing of nuclear muscle 
of North Korea & ballistic missiles 
While unbearably-serious Syria 
Left us flabbergasted yet again
With airstrikes and indifference
All the while world-strife 
Left not a single eye 
dry in the whole place…
2017, you gave us the great 
American eclipse of late August 
Plus Hurricane Harvey along-with 
his 200-billion-dollar service fee
Then came his fierce Cousin Irma 
Leaving all that was learned 
in the water's rare rage 
Not to mention the Mexico City earthquake
And yet beyond the live-stream of global tragedies
We turn to the personal strata 
- the small victories 
of our most deliberate days
And we raise a L’chaim to the ways 
we got more accustomed to 
loving each other this year...
To the survival of the kindest
that still holds sway.
Here's to life's quiet triumphs 
that so persistently accumulate
2017 - You have made us wiser and more humble 
More troubled, more serene 
Now on to a whole new l'chaim 
to ‘18