Mushrooms, Splinters, and Thorns

New Year's Eve -- Prose-Poem

My hand that holds the champagne glass trembles, and I spill a few drops of some precious liquid. We all say, "Happy new year!" And drink some more. I am not a drinker, between spilling and acting as if I am drinking, I am trying to make it to the morning. "Think of something nice, something of importance, so you find it in 2007," someone suggests. I think of a night of shooting stars, the lapis lazuli realm of old mountains, walking after a full moon, and…I open my eyes to my husband saying, "Food glorious food, what else can one wish for?" "Everything else," I think, but I don't say it.
My mind wanders and I think of writing, poetry, pictures of mountains and rivers. A friend's studies in engravings. The golden Aspen with white pencil-thin trunks swaying in the autumn breeze…All that jazz that goes with being human. I pour a cup of Chianti for someone who prefers Chianti to Champagne. She thanks me and says something I equate with a Zen koan.
Most anything people say becomes a riddle for me anyway. Luckily, no one has started talking about Bush, yet. My husband always steers the conversation away from unpleasant stuff. Maybe he is afraid that I'll hide under a table or something.
Crowd, eating and yakking. If I did really hide away, who is going to serve the food? "Glorious Food!" A la Charles Dickens, recalling "Oliver!" on stage in my son's school, after which we traipsed the school grounds in the dark.