Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on Chinese New Year of the Fire Horse

My Dear Readers:

Today, the 2026 Lunar New Year welcomes the Year of the Fire Horse—a rare, high-energy convergence in the 60-year zodiac cycle, uniting the dynamic Yang Fire element with the Horse’s innate qualities of speed, independence, and fierce passion. It is a year charged with momentum and transformation, opening wide the door to bold, self-directed action. Yet such intensity carries its own cautions: the risk of burnout, volatility, and sudden upheaval.

I would like to share with you the following new year reflection poems:

Personal:

I run with the horse

toward sunlight through storm clouds

new year's dream, yet lives

Geopolitical: 

Bloody New Year

war news on mute ...

I scream into the dark

yet the night

swallows my fury

in snow-shrouded stillness

No blue sky, no green field — only snow falling. This sound of white on white. The day goes on ...

It is the best of years; it is the worst of years; it is the age of wisdom; it is the age of foolishness; it is the epoch of belief; it is the epoch of incredulity; it is the season of light; it is the season of darkness; it is the spring of hope; it is the winter of despair. We have everything before us, and we have nothing before us.

— Paraphrased from Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities