Aaaand here ya go…

This is the year I stopped worrying
about things that might never happen—
the sky falling, the floor cracking open,
the wrong turn into a life I didn’t recognize.
Instead, I learned how to be here… fully.

I think about last January
I couldn’t move without pausing.
What did I learn in the past 12 months?
Not to fear what doesn’t come
but to be grateful for what does.

It was a year of small lessons,
like how tea cools quickly on the counter
or how the morning light shifts
quietly across the room—
even on days when I thought I was done.

I learned that the days slip in and out of focus,
like pages in a book you’ve already read
but are still a little surprised by.
There were hard days, certainly,
those unexpected visits from grief
or loneliness, the ones we can’t ignore.

But there were also golden afternoons
when nothing seemed wrong at all,
and I learned how to sit with that peace,
how to be grateful
for just that.

The calendar page turns,
but the year that’s passed
is still in me,
a soft weight,
like a coat
I forgot to hang up
but now can’t quite put away.

And with that, the 2024 December Dailies season comes to an end… good night. 😊

It’s a week into the break, and the school feels like another world, a place I know only from memory now. This poem is not a finished product, I think I cut more than I shared, but I’m tired of messing with it so you get what you get…

Resting

I woke this morning
to the slow crawl of light
creeping across the windowsill—
no harried rush to get out the door,
no list of tasks
waiting to be ticked off.
Instead, the warmth of the holiday,
the comfort of a time that stretches
like a blanket across the days.
A breath, deep and slow,
without the weight of tomorrow
pressing on my shoulders.

It’s strange, this feeling of not being needed,
of not needing to be anywhere,
but I let it wash over me.
There is peace in the stillness,
a kind of grace
that I can only feel in these empty weeks,
when the halls are quiet
and I am no one’s principal,
just a person with time to breathe,
and nothing in particular to do.
I think I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Bright Shiny Day

The sun comes in like an old friend,
quiet and familiar,
warming the chair where I sit
with no reason to move.

Outside, the trees stand still,
bare branches reaching
like sun worshipers.
A squirrel darts past.
I don’t care to follow.

The house hums softly,
and sunlight spills delightfully 
across the room.
The world has paused
just long enough
for me to watch it go by.

Again I have to admit, I picked up something I’d started some time ago and never finished. A couple hours of quiet and it is now passing acceptable. There are always things I’d like to fix but the metaphors can’t always be rushed.

Going Away

I leave the clamor,
the electric hum,
the ceaseless whirring of glass and steel—
a maze of mindless automatons
chasing numbers, chasing screens,
chasing hours like water through sandstone.

The streets are noisy,
the sidewalks clatter of feet,
voices like distant thunder
beneath the overcast sky
where nothing is real
except the pulse of the moment.

But there is silence 
beyond the horizon,
The kind that fills the throat
and settles heavily on the chest,
like a weighted blanket,
like a song sung to the earth
in a forgotten tongue.

I walk through fields
cut like royal jade lawns
beneath the mountain’s eye.
Here, the wind speaks in riddles,
the land holds the memory
of those who lived without clocks.

The birds are not on schedule,
the river is not measured,
and the sun lingers
with patient grace
no reason to hurry.

Here,
the days are not counted,
nor the years weighed in gold,
but in the ripple of the stream,
the crackle of leaves underfoot,
the smell of earth awakened by rain.

No one can buy peace; 
no machine can manufacture it; 
It is here,
in the silence,
where I am a shadow
passing through the hours,
not bound by them.

Spent

The sun hangs low,
and they keep taking
like it’s the way of the world.
They take the stories you tell,
the air you breathe,
the patience you give.

They take your time
like it’s nothing more than a coin,
flip it in the air,
spend it without care,
and never notice
how the pocket empties.
Here they come again—
hands open, eyes wide,
expecting something.

They take without asking,
never seeing the weight
on the shoulders
of the ones who have given
more than they know.
And yet the world turns,
as it always does,
and they keep taking,
as they always will.

Now and then,
you wish they’d stop for a moment,
look around,
see what’s been offered
and give something back
before the well runs dry.

Untitled

Leftover turkey,
shadows of yesterday’s feast—
a quiet exhale.

An American Sentence.

Made it!

Family gathers, hugs exchanged, but the real gift is just making it through.

Schrodinger’s Old Man

The rain falls hard on the streets outside.
I’m by the fire, a gin and tonic in hand.
Middle age has come like a cold wind,
not with a warning but suddenly,
like the silence before a storm.

There is no mistaking it.
The young man I was,
the one who chased the sun and the nights,
has slipped away without me noticing.

Now, I’m here.
And I’m not here.
Half-alive, half-gone,
waiting for something,
maybe nothing.

Christmas is always the same.
The tree in the corner,
the same old ornaments,
the same hands wrapping presents.
The faces of those I’m with, familiar but distant,
like people I could have known,
if I had been someone else.

I think of the cat in the box.
Alive, dead, or both.
Maybe that’s what I am.
Half-man, half-memory,
waiting for a door to open,
for something to decide.

But it doesn’t matter.
The fire crackles,
the gin goes down smooth.
And outside, the rain is falling.
It’s Christmas.
And I’m here,
and I’m not.

Today’s poem, I’ll admit, didn’t just happen today. My goal is generally to draft and revise and publish a poem each day in December. This poem has been sitting, unfinished, in my notebook, for several months. I started working on it during my last course of talk therapy as the themes of friendship and gratitude were significant in those sessions.

Today’s verse is the product of a few months, and realistically, a few decades of thinking about friends and what they mean to me. A lot of people have passed through my life, some leaving without a word or trace, but a few have stayed and walked and talked and listened and this poem is for them. I think they know who they are. Enjoy.

Church

I wake to the warmth of sunlight,
it spills itself in quiet rivers
across the floor, warm and welcome
as the presence of a friend. 

There is a hush that follows, 
a sigh of nature, a patient waiting.
I could live here, in this sun and silence,
where words fall like gentle stones
into a deep pool of knowing—
the right ones,
the ones that say enough
without asking for more.

Friendship is like that,
a space where the air isn’t heavy
with all the things unsaid—
where gratitude sits
on the edge of every laugh,
and we do not need to speak
to feel the warmth of each other’s being.

The world outside is wild,
but here, it is still—
the light is a prayer,
and we, in our muted voices,
are its answer.