In his 1941 poem New Year Letter, the English poet W.H. Auden wrote:
Auden’s work alludes to the social, political , and personal tensions that accompany the turn of the calendar from Dec. 31 to Jan.1. We usually find the new year a time that combines concern over the past year and hope for the next. But his verses seem particularly poignant for the person living at the end of 2023, looking toward 2024.
BIDEN'S EIGHT MOST NOTABLE GAFFES OF 2023
Many feel a weight heavier than the recurrent winter blues. This weight transcends guilty consciences for individual wrongs or loneliness and fear focused on our personal experience. We sense a collective cultural and political heaviness. This weight is born of economic trial, war, bitter division, and weak leadership. We have lived these challenges to varying degrees in 2023. We feel them hovering on the border of 2024, ready to rush in beside, if not even ahead of, us.........