Your Perfect New Year's Day 2016 For Liza

On the night before your perfect New Year's Day, the last glimmers of daylight will linger on the eyes of owls, who are keeping watch over your sleep. In the ensuing darkness, you will curl deeper into a profound rest. Just before the sun surrenders its first light, three deer will pass along your house, and look imploringly into your dreams. They will leave their faint hoof-prints in freshly fallen snow. There can be no sweeter omen for this day. In a nearby woods, a saint, dressed in a gown of green light, hovers just above the ground. He makes a sign of blessing in all four directions, as he spins without effort, so that every path you walk today will be safe and bright. The miserly neighbor will stop counting his money, and spend lavishly on each family member. People with worried expressions will turn corners and find their smiling friends greeting them. Enemies for life will have amnesia and assume they are old friends. A preacher who berates his parishioners will pause in his usual diatribe, and in the softest tones say, 'We know all things must pass, but what beautiful memories we share.' A boy will read Anna Akhmatova's 'Northern Elegies, ' and then stop using foul language. Line after line of people will receive the Eucharist, and their faces will be radiant with the divinity within. When they leave the church, they will carry a piece of heaven into the world. Blessed and blessing, there is no end to the good works they will perform in days to come. When night quietly descends on this first day, the darkness will envelop you like a rapt chorus singing vespers in their mellowest voices. You will sit in the presence of those you most dearly love and feel that love expand and embrace all who live and breathe under the dome of heaven.