
YEAR'S END
by Richard Wilbur
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
A few years back I journeyed to Pompeii, and as Wilbur writes, stood moved in contemplation of the abrupt and unforeseen "ends of time" that catastrophe brings. Amongst the excavated ruins I stood silently before the casts of crouching, unsuspecting humans, now forever ghosts of time stopped by ash. While the calendar year end is neither traumatic nor an apocalypse of ultimate end, the last day of December nonetheless marks a transition from one standardized passage of time to the beginning of another. A calendar marks the end of then which has become now, and as such, deserves our reflection.
I wrote last time about defining the essential values in our lives to help streamline personal goals and time management, and in a larger context, help us live lives that have meaning to us. To end flopping from one day to the next, so busy and overwhelmed we struggle and hurry on to the next. Defining what is essential entails identifying also what is not. And in a modern fast-paced world where multitasking is deemed both desirable and beneficial, leaving things out feels terribly threatening. What if that one meeting we do not attend is the lost career-making opportunity? What if that skipped school party becomes the cupcake-omission that keynotes the PTA Hall of Infamy? Would one more hour at the gym forever end the battle with buffet pants and launch a triathlon career? What if the bedskirts (does anybody still use bedskirts?) hide dust bunnies the size of small gerbils, which in truth mark failed character? The vacation or charity project, handwritten thank you notes or paperless post, canning garden or poetry retreat, Boy Scout den leader or work project chair? Major and minor, the muses call.
As you contemplate your personal New Year ambitions, hopes and dreams, think in terms of what is essentially important to you. Leo Babauta recommends in "The Power of Less" that we create self-guidelines for everything from how often to read and answer email to writing blogs, posts on Twitter; that we protect days for focused creative work versus time set aside for necessary inbox tasks. Give your seedling dreams room to grow by weeding out the choking distractions. Nurture and allow the light in. Embrace a set of work and life limitations, and then commit to honest enforcement of the fence-lines and watch your progress toward your goals flourish.
Personally this means I set aside days for writing long from those for short projects. I used to be all about work, and home, partnering, parenting chores and challenges. I would ping back between those two poles like a Yo-Yo, sometimes knocking myself out in a tangle of well-intentioned string. Now? I group priorities together, creating time carved from things less important in my life. Streamline the quotidien, the ordinary. Think about all the moments that make up the day and choose how to spend them.
We'll never know which use of time is "best." Only that choices must be made. Time, as the year end reminds us, is both finite and passing even as we speak. Not everything can be done, not all of what life has to offer can be sampled, not all worthy goals met. Life becomes quite simply about the choices we give our hearts to. So give well.
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by Richard Wilbur
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
A few years back I journeyed to Pompeii, and as Wilbur writes, stood moved in contemplation of the abrupt and unforeseen "ends of time" that catastrophe brings. Amongst the excavated ruins I stood silently before the casts of crouching, unsuspecting humans, now forever ghosts of time stopped by ash. While the calendar year end is neither traumatic nor an apocalypse of ultimate end, the last day of December nonetheless marks a transition from one standardized passage of time to the beginning of another. A calendar marks the end of then which has become now, and as such, deserves our reflection.
I wrote last time about defining the essential values in our lives to help streamline personal goals and time management, and in a larger context, help us live lives that have meaning to us. To end flopping from one day to the next, so busy and overwhelmed we struggle and hurry on to the next. Defining what is essential entails identifying also what is not. And in a modern fast-paced world where multitasking is deemed both desirable and beneficial, leaving things out feels terribly threatening. What if that one meeting we do not attend is the lost career-making opportunity? What if that skipped school party becomes the cupcake-omission that keynotes the PTA Hall of Infamy? Would one more hour at the gym forever end the battle with buffet pants and launch a triathlon career? What if the bedskirts (does anybody still use bedskirts?) hide dust bunnies the size of small gerbils, which in truth mark failed character? The vacation or charity project, handwritten thank you notes or paperless post, canning garden or poetry retreat, Boy Scout den leader or work project chair? Major and minor, the muses call.
As you contemplate your personal New Year ambitions, hopes and dreams, think in terms of what is essentially important to you. Leo Babauta recommends in "The Power of Less" that we create self-guidelines for everything from how often to read and answer email to writing blogs, posts on Twitter; that we protect days for focused creative work versus time set aside for necessary inbox tasks. Give your seedling dreams room to grow by weeding out the choking distractions. Nurture and allow the light in. Embrace a set of work and life limitations, and then commit to honest enforcement of the fence-lines and watch your progress toward your goals flourish.
Personally this means I set aside days for writing long from those for short projects. I used to be all about work, and home, partnering, parenting chores and challenges. I would ping back between those two poles like a Yo-Yo, sometimes knocking myself out in a tangle of well-intentioned string. Now? I group priorities together, creating time carved from things less important in my life. Streamline the quotidien, the ordinary. Think about all the moments that make up the day and choose how to spend them.
We'll never know which use of time is "best." Only that choices must be made. Time, as the year end reminds us, is both finite and passing even as we speak. Not everything can be done, not all of what life has to offer can be sampled, not all worthy goals met. Life becomes quite simply about the choices we give our hearts to. So give well.
Read More