Queen Year - Black

A Happy & Blessed New Year to you all!

The following lines were written several years ago to accompany a Year End / New Year homily. While somewhat anachronistic in that the piece begins with the old year, I trust you find will in it some inspiration for reflective moments on your past year and prospective hopes for the infant new year.

Queen Year at the closing days of December is a grand old lady.
She has nurtured and watched over us and borne us along
for these twelve months of three hundred and sixty-plus days.
She began her journey with us as a baby, a princess holding much promise.
Her energy and life brought us smiles and hope by Spring,
as rapidly maturing, she sang and danced her way into our hearts.

But she soon outgrew us, so that by Summer we weren’t quite sure
whether we or she were pulling the strings of our destinies.
By Autumn we had become more comfortable in her presence,
sensing that she understood the Plan better than we understood life’s enigmas.
We sensed that she had a source of wisdom and knew better than we what was best for us.
Finally, we resigned ourselves to her directives and learned to rest in her embrace.

It is Winter now, and her end draws near, yet Queen Year is truly regal and wise.
Propped up on her pillows of well-earned respect, she reclines in possession of all her faculties.
And we . . . we gather round her bed knowing that whatever judgments she declares
for how we have treated her during her sojourn with us will be for our learning,
for our good. And so we intently listen ... listen well in order to heed.
Her reproofs are to instruct, her commendations are to inspire.

Queen Year has no desire to hang on to her life or power, for she is a giver.
Her life is all but spent, and she is poised with grace to relinquish her hold.
Her smile assures us that the gift of a newborn Princess Year will,
like she has done, nurture and care for us, as we care for her.
And even though she too will outpace us to grow and mature so swiftly,
we will learn to love and trust her, for, like all the years of our lives with all of their days,
She will be to us a Gift from the hand of the Creator Divine.

~~+~~
© Peter A. Black, 2007
Peter is a freelance writer living in Southwestern Ontario.He is the author of "Parables from the Pond" (Word Alive Press), and writes a weekly column in The Watford-Guide Advocate.