New Year’s Day – sethlewis.ie

The bark still looks the same to me
its wrinkles and its moss
it’s just like the same old normal tree
with no clear gain or loss
I see the branches bending up
though now they’re bending bare
but I know well that underneath
are buds being prepared
and roots have reached down
deeper and the trunk slowly
expanded as the seasons
of another year
transform the life that’s planted
and my life is planted, also
and my heart-wood growing, too
and a new ring I have added
for each year
that I’ve passed through
some are thin—just bare survival
some are thick—great with revival
but each year
that I’m still here
I’ll ring it in
like the old oak tree
ring it in
until the world sees
how the grace that God
has granted
can transform the life
he planted
ring it in

New Year’s Day, 2025. The day we all start having to pause to remember what year to write on forms and checks and such, or when we start writing it wrong and having to scribble it out and start again. What will this New Year bring? No one really knows. Looking back is easier—we know what the past is. For good or bad, it’s done. Before long, this past year that was so current, so vital and cutting-edge yesterday will start to feel stale and dated. Old. Has been. Whether we look back on it as the good old days or some kind of personal dark age doesn’t change the fact that we will look back on it. There was a New Year’s Day last year, too. Do you remember it? Or ten years ago, or twenty? Last Halloween I saw that they were selling ’90’s costumes, as if the ’90’s weren’t just last week. But they did look a bit funny.

Tag: New Year’s Day

Ring it in (a poem for a new year)

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