New Year 2025

light breaks beyond black trees
fingering softly through bare branches
all’s quiet, peace in my heart,
as if all’s good — which clearly it is not!

On the near horizon monsters loom
towers tumble 
beautiful old cities are ravaged 
fire consumes, floods drown
thousands of bodies are shattered.
We lift bare hands, hoping, 
bereft of words to encase
the unspeakably terrifying 
destruction of all we know as good.

Light breaks through the charred trees
through the grey, Hope pierces
hearts leap, lift 

(thinking of Wordsworth, and rainbows)