That New Year’s Eve, after some drinks

we sat around the kitchen island
talking about how to bring in the year.

I said we bang pots and pans
with wooden kitchen utensils—
what I did every year when I was young.

Everyone laughed, called me wild.

I didn’t understand why
until they all went outside at midnight,
pots in hand, wooden spoons raised,
hollering into the cold.

What a bunch of crazies.

Mine.
All mine.

I taught a new tradition that year
just by speaking up.