Perhaps

The future is called "perhaps,"
which is the only possible thing to call the future.
And the important thing
is not to allow that to scare you. 

             Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending

 

 

 

 

 

Start writing

The past is written,
but the future is left for us to write,
and we have powerful tools, Rios:
openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity.
All they have is secrecy, and fear,
and fear is the great destroyer, Rios.

       Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek episode written by Michael Chabon

 

 

 

 

Better

People ask me to predict the future,
when all I want to do is prevent it.
Better yet, build it.
Predicting the future
is much too easy, anyway.
You look at the people around you,
the street you stand on,
the visible air you breathe,
and predict more of the same.
To hell with more. I want better.

            Ray Bradbury, Beyond 1984

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fare forward

Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you.

                       T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving On - Fare Well

This is not our first time
to try to move on into the future.
It just keeps becoming the present.

             Sister Margaret Rose, Drumalis, Northern Ireland 

A link to the Scottish celebration of the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
The largest swarm drone show ever seen in the UK.
150 drones create iconic images and words in the Scottish sky set to original words and music.
Edinburgh's Hogmanay 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx3Zmkgt2no 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Depends on Us...

Another year lies before us
like an unwritten page,
an unspent coin,
an unwalked road.
How the pages will read,
what treasures will be gained
in exchange for time,
or what we find along the way,
will largely depend on us.

           Esther Baldwin York

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: New Year's Resolution

Well, I did it again, bringing in
that infant Purity across the land,
welcoming Innocence with gin
in New York, waiting up
to help Chicago,
Denver, L.A., Fairbanks, Hon-
olulu—and now
the high school bands are alienating Dallas,
and girls in gold and tangerine
have lost all touch with Pasadena,
and young men with muscles and missing teeth
are dreaming of personal fouls,
and it’s all beginning again, just like
those other Januaries in
instant replay.

But I’ve had enough
of turning to look back, the old
post-morteming of defeat:
people I loved but didn’t touch,
friends I haven’t seen for years,
strangers who smiled but didn’t speak—failures,
failures. No,
I refuse to leave it at that, because
somewhere, off camera,
January is coming like Venus
up from the murk of December, re-
virginized, as innocent
of loss as any dawn. Resolved: this year
I’m going to break my losing streak,
I’m going to stay alert, reach out,
speak when not spoken to,
read the minds of people in the streets.
I’m going to practice every day,
stay in training, and be moderate
in all things.
All things but love.

                          Philip Appleman