Sunday, December 31, 2023

ALTAR: The Last Poem of 2023

Can you see that my entire body

is an altar?  My eyes are lit candles,

my lungs breathe out hope’s incense. 

My heart is a shaman’s drum pulsing

out life’s daily rhythm, tempered

with a searing chalice of honesty

lettered in my blood.

 

It is New Year’s Eve, yet the graceful snake

of each minute, every butterfly second

circles on time’s perpetual altar cloth

as each pregnant moment births its own

new year and another chance to do

what is right and true in what will become

the Auld Lang Syne of your times.

 

So what gifts will you set on your cloth?

Will your hands and feet be an offering

and landmark of accountability and compassion?

In the tilting lever of our days, be an altar.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 12/31/2023



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