HAPPY NEW YEAR

Peer Garden Images at Tourism Tofino

As the old bedraggled,

disappointing year skulks away,

may you approach the new,

shining with possibility,

your eyes wide with wonder

like a Christmas child.

May you open the package 

of each day,

gift-wrapped in sunrise colours,

to find something in it

of beauty, of laughter, of affection,

of gratitude, of Hope.

May 2017 unravel its 

weeks and months

full of community, 

of working together

in the cause of social justice.

May the old year sing out the tears,

the   disillusion, the events

that broke our hearts,

and show us a new day,

tinged golden with the promise

of better times ahead.

I wish you hearts filled

with possibility and promise.

I wish you times at home

with loved ones close by,

faces shining in the firelight.

I wish you flights of poetry

to make your heart soar,

and dogs with thumping tails

inside your front door

to greet you as you enter.

Most of all,

as the new year dawns

and we bid farewell

to the darkness of 2017,

I wish you a happy heart.

I wish you Love.

I wrote this poem for my New Years Day feature today at Poets United, where the staff has gathered a posey of poems to welcome the new year in. May 2018 bring you all good things - and poetry!

Also sharing it with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads, where Sanaa is beginning the year with positivity and hopefulness.