A Tender New Year
As we pass over the threshold between years
I hope for you, tenderness;
that you become tenderness.
Tender with your longings,
tender with the things that are still impossible.
Tender.
May you hold grief in your hand like a tender shoot.
May impatience break apart into rich soil.
May you honour and be touched by the earth.
May your heart close each day and each evening
with gratitude and concern
around doctors, nurses, health tenders,
pouring themselves out,
“one life/ one life/ one life/one life/one life”.
May you hold them each day in the small flower of your prayer.
May you breathe in their work.
May you be tender too with the rawness of injustices
revealed, perpetrated, structured,
again, and again, and again.
“one life/ one life/ one life/one life/one life”.
May you be fiercely tender
Enough that you may be penetrated;
Shaped into meaningful response.
May you be tender with children
with those who are seeing their dreams
or their dignity slip away
With those who are afraid or angry
may you be porous and sheltering as marshes.
With those who are careless or malign
may your tenderness be as resilience and resistance
May you become tenderness
In this new year,
I hope for you.
Catherine Smith © 2021
The quotation, “one life/ one life/ one life/one life” is from Padraig O’Tuama’s poem, “The Pedagogy of Conflict”. Originally published in Sorry for your Troubles (Canterbury Press, 2013).
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So much here to chew on Catherine…. some words that hold a PUNCH… and some that melt as mind and heart are brought together… thank you for another powerful piece.
May you find the ‘punch’ and melting of words as needed in the coming days, Pix.
Many of these lines speak volumes to me and invite an opening to a softer path.
I’m glad, Shirley. A softer path is not always an easy one to take but we can dispose ourselves toward it and know its vital gifts.
Oh and I love the dragonfly image, Catherine! At first glance it looks frozen but I’m thinking it is dew. Just lovely. <3
I imagined it as dew. Not exactly a winter image but it sometimes seemed to capture both the strength and the delicacy of tenderness.
Penetrate….such a powerful word, seldom used in context such as this. Thank you again, Catherine, for your words that take us out of our common understanding to a realm of new possibilities. <3
The marshes are a good place to ponder the word penetrate; a good place to sense more of what it might mean. I’m so glad you noticed, Kerry.
I’m trying to like this but it won’t register.
I’m not sure why this is the case. I’ll check on it.
Beautiful and inspiring.
May it be a help as we wend our way into this new year. Thank you ~