The danger of a storm of cliches hovers in the wings…
metaphors mix it with each other…
tides turn, seas ebb…
moons set, suns rise…
worlds spin on their axes…
Strange that marking a year’s end
and a new beginning
feels like a monument rising,
a tower falling,
a significant event
when naming of days is arbitrary.
The rev-counting globe,
moon’s phases
are built in,
each day the same,
undifferentiated.
So why this apprehension?
Why my uncertainty?
Fear,
that death is nearer than it was?
Arrogance,
importing significance to tasks left incomplete?
The intractable magnetism of mystery,
drawing and repelling?
The cliches are gathering…
Andrew Pratt 27/12/2018
hymnsandbooks 