Saturday, January 11, 2025

Older

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

When another new year trembles

beneath my feet,

 

golden

and merciless,

 

black

and heaven-sent—

 

the path obscure

but coming to light—

 

it’s never without thorns,

even while glowing.

 

Cohen said there is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.

 

I’ll forget my perfect offering.

 

The journey sometimes breaks me, but tells me, too,

the cracks are how

 

the light shines out of you.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

4 comments:

  1. supple and delicate, in the way webs are delicate yet imbued with strength. happy new year, Jen, may this new year be filled with light despite the looming dark ~

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  2. Older . . . and wiser, I think, which isn't always a given. The imagery of the path beneath our feet blazes with it, a well-travelled road. The last lines are so moving. So good.

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  3. "Anthem" is perfectly titled. It's like a distillation of all that LC wrote and sung before writing it. I daresay a perfect offering, despite the lyric. I often think it.

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  4. Beautiful. So much light can shine out of the smallest crack.

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Thank you for your thoughts!