There is always a sense of urgency around New Year. Resolutions. Determinations. Termination perhaps. We are all a year closer to death and feel the urge to live our lives and live them well – or at least to live them better than we did last year.
I only have one resolution this year – to keep hope alive. Which begs the question, “What am I hoping for?”
- An end to the genocide in Gaza and justice for Palestine
- Significant government action on climate change
- Mass strikes and protests to stop Labour from selling off the NHS and the rest of our public services to vulture capitalists like Blackrock
On a personal note I hope to get some of my poetry and children’s stories published. Writing for children is investing in hope.
I will end 2024 by looking back to a poem I wrote at the start of 2023. Finding time to be myself might be my second resolution.
NEW YEAR PRESENT
In the dark of dawn we meet the demons
Of our dreams and, grateful, take our leave
Of sleep and wake to greet, not any day,
This Day! The marker for a waking year.
We may be glad to leave last year behind,
But do not want to lose the life we lived,
The memories maintained, albeit modified
To give some sense of purpose to the past.
New memories await, a history to be made.
We try to catch the time and give it shape.
Headlong, headstrong, time races from our grasp
Halting, we respond. No time to waste. We waste it anyway.
But is it waste to stop and slow the pace
To live outside the frame of our imagined selves?
Being, not becoming, helps me find an
Undiscovered time. The time is now.
Mike Stanton 5th January 2023