Wild Geese

In a literal sense, a year is not much more than a signpost. The earth has been making this loop for longer than we have been counting it. But symbolically, the loop still matters. It gives us a resting point. A place from which to say enough.

Enough noise. Enough interference. Enough outsourcing your inner life to momentum, metrics, and the increasingly polished voices that insist you should want more things more efficiently. Sometimes the most honest move is not to improve the system. It is to step out of it for a minute.

There is always an imagined future self waiting nearby, disappointed in your lateness, your softness, your unfinished work, your less-than-optimal choices. It is very easy to hand that version of yourself too much authority. It is much harder to move more fully into the gentle rhythms of your actual life and let that be a form of wisdom rather than failure.

That is part of why this poem keeps returning. Not as self-help. Not as absolution. As a reminder that the body is not a bug report and the soul is not improved by constant escalation. The world is still going on. The sky is still making room. You are still allowed to belong before you become more impressive.

This page is here to hold that pause open for a second longer. To let a little air back into the room. To remember that attention can still be gentle, and that clarity is sometimes less important than contact.