My life is all before me

 

art by Hannah Willow

We're all in retreat here at the convent; it's our custom on December 31.   I'm praying and writing and thinking back.

Here's a poem by Richard Hoffman:

December 31st

All my undone actions wander

naked across the calendar,

 

a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,

blown snow scattered here and there,

 

stumbling toward a future

folded in the New Year I secure

 

with a pushpin: January’s picture

a painting from the 17th century,

 

a still life: Skull and mirror,

spilled coin purse and a flower.

 

Richard Hoffman, “December 31st” from Emblem. Copyright © 2011 by Richard Hoffman. Reprinted by permission of Barrow Street Press.

Source: Emblem (Barrow Street Press, 2011)

 

 

art by Childe Hassam

and here's the first stanza of a poem by Martha Collins:

from Grayed In

Snow fallen, another going

gone, new come in, open

the door:

                  each night I grow

young, my friends are well

again, my life is all

before me,

                   each morning

I close a door, another door.