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Happy New Year.

Although last night, when we said the words, we hardly believed them.
Said them with little conviction, with a mustard seed-sized faith;
Said them more in blind hope than certainty,
Like a punch-drunk boxer dazed from too many batterings to think straight,
Relying on the muscle memory of New Year’s gone by
And the reckless hope we had then
Of a future better than the present just passed.
It surely can’t get any worse.

We said it
Despite the uncertainty and evidence to the contrary
At risk of ridicule and falling flat on our backs
The wind dying in our sails
Our dreams getting no further than the garden gate.
Because it’s a ritual, a habit, a thing we say;
But also because we are creatures
Who make leaps of imagination and faith.
Who are able to see,
Even when the body fails,
What the spirit and mind wills:
The things that do not yet exist
Have not yet come to be.
And we say them for the ones unable to say them.
Who don’t believe them
Who have not the breath to utter them.
Or light to feel them.

This year will be different but the same:
People will die
Too soon and alone.
There will be earthquakes and famine
And a senseless war will rage
In a place too far away to feel the richochet.
Some will be unlucky; some defy the odds
Goals will be met and scored,
Posts struck, last posts played.
Someone you love will suffer.
A business will fail
The price of houses will go up.
I know I’ll speak ill of someone
Send a text I regret
Get into a futile argument about
The state of the nation, The World.

This year there will be bad news
But the good news will be like pearls
Found in the bin.
Resolutions are for fools
But still we’ll make them.
Resolution means ‘to set free’.
I’ll resolve to be more green
Then be on the first plane
When the freedom to go is given.
I’ll kiss the ground of the country I fly to
The way
the old pope did.
At the first party we get to
We’ll raise hands in the air
And shout ‘yes!’
And when that jab
Punctures my arm I’ll thank God
For clever people.
I’ll visit my un-hugged Mum
And my Dad with his un-plugged heart;
We’ll get back to the old beat
Make a new start.

This year things will change and yet be just the same.
Let’s lose the weight
Of these sad times,
Believe that healing awaits and is free.
Agree to let no debt remain
Except the continuing debt to love.
Believe we are necessary to one another.
And that with each other we should bear.
It’s with this hope I say
Happy New Year.

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