Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets
This is the first time a new year approaches where I’m feeling more trepidation than hope, but I will work hard to lean into hope. Not a believer in fortunes, particularly the random kind that come in cookies, I kept this one. There are things I need to accomplish this year, and things I know we will all face as individuals and as a nation. We will all need strong and willing hearts.
We all need to gather the fragments we will shore against our ruin, so at the end of it all we may chant, “shanti, shanti, shanti.” (from T.S. Elliot’s, “The Wasteland”)