January started with soft briny sunlight

January started with soft briny sunlight and the clink of coffee cups

We returned the country and water for the city and

the media clamours of a darker, colder hemisphere

The rhythm of the month stuttered and drifted

Stalling before coming into being again as the tail end of 2020’s

least inspiring tasks trailed into

what we call a New Year, even though I already knew

that the calendar’s 1/1 (21) was arbitrary. That

Anxieties remain, man’s destruction and nature’s will has its own

Enduring pace. (But still we must hope and plan for renewal).

Freckles and bruises blossomed on the outdoor days of bikes and beaches

filled with many more bodies (and much more joy) than the eight fraught

months of last year’s

Uncertain solitude

So perhaps for the first time (in a long time) I became truly grateful

for the place I have resisted, and that has

resisted me in equal measure,

for 15 unhappy months

Experiencing

The fruits of its global disconnection, finding freedom

and safety but above all a

Groove of people and places I want to know.

A phrase came from somewhere I don’t know

Things Take Time

The hum of this mantra that I didn’t ask for, but much needed

quietly punching through.

The year started on the cold jetty looking into the black, black of the lake.

Originally shared here