You contemplate the year ended 2025
Deaths
Births
Marriages
Like short stories read
Completed
Set aside
We roll up the days -weeks and months
Like sleeves
As we prepare for 2026
Knot a trusty boot tight
Try on the clown’s oversized shoe
A new bold light slips under the door
Almost unseen
Announcing time
A beam of sunlight unhooked from cherry tree
Is cast down
A cloud profiles change
A spectrum of possibilities
A desire for hope
We smile as the future
Spreads out before us..
Like a harvest that drinks the sun and rain
Turns crisp brown
And promises to sustain us through
The coming year..
Fear not the brood of daggers in
Every heart
Thorns that grip our tears
Or the sadness of a love we cannot dig
out of heavy snow /or cleave from ice
A passion tossed aside by rapids
Unfulfilled
Spent and swept from the pillow by
a hand of clay
Because
Our open arms fill with air and silence.
The Unknowing
We can only guess what tomorrow brings
As the year finds us new
Waking every day
Surprised by a dawn
.
Malcolm Paul
Picture Nick Victor
Photo Garcia Lorca
.