As 2023 turns its back with a sigh, we walk into a brand new year.Hope - with all its bewitching deceptions - will make us wish for our best selves, to slough off the undesirable and ugly, and emerge fresh and wet, with unfazed optimism to conquer the world. But soon enough, we will know that, as always, all we need to do is to conquer ourselves.And I sit down and make a list of what I want to leave behind in the old year and another list of what I want of the new year. And then I realise. - the new year wants nothing of me.It’s a sobering thought.And forces me to think of everyone in my life who loves me unquestionably, and expects nothing but an ear to listen as we sip our tea together, and a hand to hold as we go out into the world.Hence my only wish for myself - and for everyone in this world - is that we honour time and we create space. For we have to both hurry in this life and not forget to savour the moment. Because we need to both honour our ambition and be beside those who need us beside them.May we all be unafraid to do what we love, and find peace in the torn and tattered bounty of what we are.

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the ephemeral nature of time -

• Letting go (because I am alive)
• Memory Keeper
• Falling Into a New Year

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Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Music: Moments by Frank SchroeterFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11940-momentsLicensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license