Wednesday, January 9, 2019

STARTING OVER


Each January first
I begin again,
starting over with a
shiny new year
laid out before me
like footprints in the snow,
leading to all that is beautiful:
shorebirds, sunsets, forest trails.

Every morning,
I begin again.
Arch one eyebrow,
open one eye:
still here.
Yippee!
I smile at the
wall of green trees
outside my window,
check out the sky,
legs sliding over
the side of the bed;
they hold me up.
It's all good!

Every time I pick up the phone,
I try to get it right,
to say what the one
on the other end of the phone
needs to hear.

Every time I hear that
whales are dying,
ecosystems are being destroyed,
the lungs of the planet
are being mowed down,
I resolve to do all I can
to stand for Mother Earth
and the billions of other beings
who share this earth with us.

Every time I begin
a new poem
I hope
this will be the one
I am happy with.
It rarely is.
And so, next day, 
next poem, next time,
I pick up my pen,
tap at the keys,
and I
begin again.




for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Starting Over. Photos are of my sister's farm in Port Alberni.

One thing those of us who have lived long know well is that life gives us many opportunities to begin again.

17 comments:

  1. Wild women are made of wonderfully malleable stuff, of energy that reshaped itself in order to get as much benefit as possible of what life offers. I love that about you (and about me, too 😁)—we might rage at life’s injustices every now and again, but when push comes to shove, we fly forward!

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  2. You are the shining example of that, my friend!

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  3. I love the idea of new year as "footprints in the snow," such exquisite imagery in this one, Sherry! We are forever faced with life and its atrocities yet we find it in our heart to start afresh and move on.

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  4. Luv that the poet in you is shinning through this poem. Every poem is in fact a new beginning

    Happy you dropped by my blog today

    Much🎉love

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  5. Arch one eyebrow, open one eye: still here...yippie! This is great! Love how you describe waking up and being grateful just for the new day.

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  6. Happy New Year, Sherry!

    Love everything about your poem. It made me laugh with " Arch one eyebrow, / open one eye: /still here." Yet I feel the seriousness addressing injustice against Mother Earth.

    Wish you all the best as you pick up that pen to right the wrongs of this world.

    p.s. I see you got lots of snow as well in your area. Enjoy the season!

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  7. life is sometimes a damn bowl of cherry pits, but for the sweetness of the fruit? in whose mouths do we stop to drop the morsels?
    sometimes, it's the memories of the smallest sweetnesses, the simplest of gifts, like waking to see a new dawn that has to afford us the fuel to get going again .... and if in these reflective silences, we find our own hearts and truths, then we can fuel ourselves to face the days, to not be defeated, even when we're altogether too worn thin .... so, yes, the gratitude for the small, the details for the grander sweep, - so it is we run, crawl, march, soldier, mother on -

    keep singing your psalms of hope Sherry ... moment by moment, step by step - this is a gift to be treasured.

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  8. "Arch one eyebrow,
    open one eye:
    still here.
    Yippee!"

    Bless your heart, Sherry, this is my new favorite of your poems. I feel it contains all of you, especially your love.

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    Replies
    1. I wanted to share this, Sherry, but you didn't put it on FB. Is it ok to share?

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  9. Love where your poem takes me now. There's so much love, joy and energy here. Quite infectious :)

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  10. The repetition of ‘each’ reinforces the repetition of this annual event, Sherry, and that we are given many chances with each shiny new year. I wonder how so many people end up wishing for the same things at the end of every year and can’t be satisfied with following those footprints in the snow to the ‘shorebirds, sunsets, forest trails’. Although I’ve been down in the dumps so many times, I still look forward to getting up in the morning and seeing nature outside my window.

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  11. Oh that elusive perfect poem- may it come to all of us in the new year!

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  12. Dear Sherry loved this simple yet so touching so real and so soft like the snow all around ...indeed it is like many ..one eye open..but it seems like Chaucers 'open eyen ' waiting joyfully for Spring Thank you

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  13. Poetry sustains you. At the rate you write (and rewrite), you'll probably live to be 201!

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  14. I fall down, I get up, I keep writing...

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  15. Getting out of bed , seeing you are still here, gives you another chance to write!

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