Happy New Year

 

When I say ‘happy new year’, 

I’m not for a moment,

expecting this to occur,

for that is not possible, 

a year must be all things.

Happiness must come and go, 

like the tides and the winds, 

just as sadness, 

and all the emotions in between.

When I say ‘happy new year’,

I’m really wishing you,

a baseline of peace,

of gratitude. 

Because if you can sit with these things, 

for the most part, 

happiness will thrive, 

when it does arrive, 

and sadness will know its place in the mix.

If you can nourish these things, 

daily, 

you will also grow hope, 

for it flourishes in such soil.

And hope is the key,

to this enigmatic state

of ‘happiness’ we seek.

When I say ‘happy new year’,

I’m really wishing you more happy days, 

than sad days, 

more joy than misery,

more laughter than tears… 

and the wisdom to accept,

that they all belong.

Happy new year, my friends.

Happy new year.

—Donna Ashworth 

[Sunset over the Sequatchie Valley in TN on New Year's Eve 2025]. 

This New Day

 

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Experimenting with watercolor pencils and embracing the blunders].

The Gardener

Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.

—Mary Oliver 

[Picking arugula with Ella, 2021].

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

 

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

7.

...And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

--Mary Oliver

Beneath the Sweater and the Skin

How many years of beauty do I have left?

she asks me.

How many more do you want?

Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

 

When you are 80 years old

and your beauty rises in ways

your cells cannot even imagine now

and your wild bones grow luminous and

ripe, having carried the weight

of a passionate life.

 

When your hair is aflame

with winter

and you have decades of

learning and leaving and loving

sewn into

the corners of your eyes

and your children come home

to find their own history

in your face.

 

When you know what it feels like to fail

ferociously

and have gained the

capacity

to rise and rise and rise again.

 

When you can make your tea

on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon

and still have a song in your heart

Queen owl wings beating

beneath the cotton of your sweater.

 

Because your beauty began there

beneath the sweater and the skin,

remember?

 

This is when I will take you

into my arms and coo

YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING

you've come so far.

I see you.

Your beauty is breathtaking.

 --Jeannette Encinias

[Photo of my mother who has 89 years of breathtaking beauty!]

One Heart

If I can stop even one heart from

breaking, I shall not live in vain.

 —Emily Dickinson

I may not keep your heart from breaking,

but if I can stitch up even one

small corner of a single chamber,

I will have done my work for the day.

If I can help you turn your gaze

toward the clouds at sunset going

slowly orange then pink, becoming

shadows as the net of dusk gets thrown

over the house and trees, then I can

sleep tonight, knowing you stood with me

at the window, hand on your chest,

letting the sickle-moon, as soon

as it appeared, slice through 

each of your fears as easily as bread.

—James Crews 

October 10

 

Now constantly there is the sound,
quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
Loud — landmark — now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.

--Wendell Berry