a prophetic voice-

This was written on December 31, 2013, at a poetry workshop at Healing Ground...words I needed to get out...to write...to share... in preparation for beginning a new year. retrospective 2013 Birthed in heartbreak, this yew year... Awash with tears, the way ahead unclear. Choices and decisions ride upon      the waves of uncertainty,      Yet choose I must and choose I did... As far away, the distant shore seemed      out of reach...           but stroke by stroke it nearer came           'til loving arms reached out to take           my trembling hand and lead me home. The journey long, the path uneven bramble-torn...      yet on I walked...stumbled...fell...      began again...despite the bruises and the scrapes...    ...

Today, a friend reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day", which closes with these lines: I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? With what better words and thoughts can we begin a new year? with the reminders of the beauty and wonder of the natural world of which we are a part (though far too often we set ourselves apart from it); reminders of the fragility of life; reminders about the importance of living that life to the fullest. As I am a person of words, I could write many more of them, confront you with many more thoughts, but I prefer, on this brink of a new year, to permit Nature  to speak for itself, as...