Happy New Year Covers!
As you might imagine, Instagram is filled with 'New Year' poems and I figured that we should share some of the festivities. I was introduced to this poem in a workshop and I thought the overall message/vibe was just beautiful. It's rather long but it's worth it!
Begin Here
By Maya Stein
When the last seat is taken, or the key has trapped in the lock, when the rain has eviscerated your garden, or your words have run out one by one. When the packing is half-finished, or traffic keeps you from your purpose, when the bright white of your day has paled and pixilated. When the grocery bag rips coming up the stairs, when the telephone bill shocks and then flounders you, when love has flown off course, when your nails are ragged and wanton, when the runway is slick and the sky sodden. When the ache for something nameless fans out into your bones, when you're hungry, or lost or in need of a hand across your eyelashes. When it’s deadline or dilemma or just you tripping on the stained carpet of your trouble, begin here.
Place one leaden, obstinate foot where you can see it. Gather your maniacal breath, your little windbags of lungs. Eye only the square of sidewalk a blink away, that quadrant of concrete mottled with the dirty evidence of living, and go.
When the manual for what’s broken has been misplaced, when the view is obscured by a restless construction site, when your closet is an echo of castoffs. When the bridge toll climbs and the road down the mountain is pummeled with snow, when your face bears little resemblance to the person you remember, when the field is populated with abler bodies, when poems have been written by nimbler souls, when no amount of squinting delivers oasis, begin here.
Guide your defeated arms into a small fit of swinging. Coerce your hips into the barest shimmy. Locate the pocket of a single, deserted minute, its hum of insignificance, and go.
When cheer cannot cheer you, when crumbs cannot feed you, when the storage space in the garage topples from the weight. When beauty eludes you, when the weatherman confirms your fear, when the doctor bears his wild news. When you return to the bad habit, when the current continues its brutal tackle, when mess is your middle name, begin here.
Climb onto your weary haunches. Lift your belly from its mattress cave. Initiate the wholly unremarkable act of breathing, and go.
When you have had enough. When you have had too much. When your fortress has not kept away the enemy, and the walls are an abscess of rubble. Do not fling yourself from the gangplank. Do not hasten your disappearance with your own cruelty. Do not mask your ferocity with a collage of good manners.
The death’s door of your failure is still a door. Wrap your shaking fist around the handle. Hear the cricket click of the latch. And begin.
I think one of the things I enjoy about this poem is that it acknowledges that there's hard times and difficulties. This is not a 'new year, new me' poem. Despite how the poem explores the notion of 'beginning', I think it's more about continuing, of forging your way through the hard times.
I can't wait to see what you think!