It is the concerns of the day that turn us to poets and philosophers to define the importance of the coming of any new year: Housman reflected on the “beauty of the death-struck year.” Emerson told us the “years teach what the days never know.” In the 19th century Charles Lamb wrote: “No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.” And Tennyson took special note of the new year when he was poet laureate of England in 1850: “Ring out the old, ring in the new; Ring, happy bells, across the snow; The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

As for the Vineyard and new year’s resolutions, we wish for unity within the community, and for quiet thought about the future of this place.

Meanwhile, from all of us at the Vineyard Gazette we extend to everyone on the Island and across the nation best wishes for a happy, prosperous and peaceful new year 2023.