Happy 2021 from John Gibson!
We have officially reached the end of a very tumultuous year (2020), and I pray that it – and the start of 2021 – has found you blessed and healthy and ready to take on what challenges may come.
Life has been busy on this end. Between work and family responsibilities, I have striven to be as consistent and faithful as possible in writing regularly, and sharing my work via social media. I am still in the process of writing short stories for a compendium that I hope to publish one day, as well as poetry, and (as always) fomenting ideas for my next full-length novel.
On the poetry front, the holidays were kind of quiet – not much interaction with the Inspiration Spirits (not to be confused with the Christmas spirits that visited Ebenezer Scrooge). However, now that we’re past New Year’s, and things are starting to get back into a routine, I have had several poems that have come to me; one of which I’d like to share with you now. It is below.
Wedding Rings
In the heydays of life and love,
We shine,
The world shines,
And our affections shimmer brighter
Than a shoreline basking in the California sun.
Those heady moments and world-is-my-oyster snippets of time
Are but fleeting,
Yet somehow seem infinite in the sight of the young.
For too soon do they disperse,
Leaving us, and taking with them our optimism,
Our goals, our dreams,
And the moments in which we may have realized them all.
Time cares not for the dreamer,
As it consumes youth, beauty, and unmitigated energy.
Let the young then seize their youth,
Bask in it, rejoice in it, make love in it,
And cherish it.
And for those of us at or nearing twilight,
Let us look fondly upon our own youth,
Not pining for days of yore,
But rather looking to the very wedding bands we wear –
Faded and no longer resplendent with light reflected;
Yet sturdy, strong, and dependable –
Just like the promise of love,
Made in the ebullient gyrations of our young days,
And carried forth into old age.
Let us remember, and rejoice, then…
And be thankful for such things as they have passed.
JWG
2020
I hope you gave enjoyed – and continue to enjoy – these newsletters, as 2020 was a rather “quiet” year on the publishing news front. Again, I hope to one day soon publish a collection of short stories, once I have completed them. And hopefully – perhaps sooner than that – put together another published volume of poetry. More to follow.
Until then, blessings and keep reading!
Respectfully,
John
