Into 2021 We Go

Gregorian calendar says we are ending the year of 2020 tonight,
And overnight we enter 2021,
All with the same hope and excitement that a new year brings. 

The past year of 2020 challenged everyone in many different ways,

And it would be easy to dismiss,

A year deemed bad or maybe even a year to forget. 

We should not so easily turn our backs on this most challenging year,

Even as many endured so much,

Health, family or simply the impact of our isolation.

Each of us would have good reasons to curse the year,

One that was meant,

A year we thought, would be a turning point of greatness.

It was a year the futurists and prophets of positivity had said,

This year would bring,

But life determines how life itself is going to unfold.

I would rather look back on 2020 and view the challenges,

As growth, of changing perspective,

To view 2020 for the good things happened as well.

The year brought me off the road to spend more time with family,

To find new ways to connect,

To listen to people and to cherish more important things in life.

The year gave all of us celebrations, births, birthdays, accomplishment.

There was more of people talking, 

Sometimes angrily but talking is a way to start resolving differences.

We adapted and created ways to accomplish in spite of,

COVID isolation, social injustice, and pain,

Even as all of this occurred we moved forward, we did it together.

We did all of this working with each other, leaning on each other,

Trusting each other.

By sharing our human experience with each other to push through.

Now 2021, new year, new hopes, goals, dreams and opportunity,

Yet the year is but a number.

And we make of that number, the year, what we want of it.

Life will create what it does for us in the coming days and months.

There will be challenges just like in 2020,

But there will be opportunity, there will be joy, there will be success. 

As is customary, I wish the best for each of you in the new year.

I wish so much,

Health, happiness, love and peace to you, your families, your friends.

Most of all I wish for each of you to find greatness in yourself.  

To know you are great,

And to be happy in yourself with what you have and in what you do.

If you can find that, you can overcome anything.

Life really is great.

Let that be your wish, your goal, your success in 2021.

Stay inspired my friends! 

Another Year To Remember

We started the year full of hope and promise,

We do so each year, a given, written in sonnets.

With joy we entered the year of 2020,

With increasing pain and disaster aplenty.

We wondered what hit us as March it came clear,

We sorted exaggeration and dealt with our fear.

With adjustments some wore masks to limit the spread,

With others their freedoms meant more than the dead.

We asked then deflected to others as the source,

We said no not us, was them, the fervor and force.

With so many deaths does not fully matter,

With focus we changed and wrote a new chapter.

We made it this far, a new year approaching,

We come to it wishing with hope ever promising.

With leaving 2020 and entering 2021,

With much more to do, our lives will move on.

Stay inspired my friends!

Life of Sharing

 

I sit and ponder of all the wonder,

When once was fret and anger and thunder.

With time and age, to ease my burden,

Of things too small to worry or bother.

The troubles of life are no less thought of,

Goodness fills more than the other.

With burdens eased with mindful change,

To lessen pain, allow joy to reign.

A wish for all is a change in heart,

To lay down the hate and make a new start.

If only to lessen the madness we carry,

And live a life of peace, more sharing.

Stay inspired my friends!

Beatitude of Turkey

Came from the woods in feathered glory.

First just one, tom leading the way.

Soon was joined, the rafter, the flock.

Noisy gobbling, at distance would warn.

Where next to end upon a table.

Call it gobbler, a tarnegol hodu, kalkoen, moan barang, pelehu, shichimenchō, Truthahn, or plain old Turkey.

Bird is sacrificed, we celebrate the food,

Table full, no turkey alone, true thanks for all given,

From feathery beginning, to the corn, the cranberry.

Our family to all, here or there, cheers to your Thanksgiving.

Stay inspired my friends!