FIN!

I made a crazy decision 364 days ago; my reasons were unclear;

To try to write a poem a day for one entire year.

To show I wasn’t thinking straight and what naivete it took

Not only did I decide to write them but to post them on Facebook!

Is it irony that the first poem I wrote in what was to become a year long chain

Was a little rhyme, 8 stanzas long, containing a message from Mark Twain?

In all likelihood it was Abe Lincoln who first these words did christen

But if Lincoln and Twain said the same thing perhaps I should have listened.

Tis better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool, was the message they sent out

Than to open our mouths and at that point suddenly remove all doubt.

Perhaps I should have heeded their advice from that first little rhyme...before...

I sat down at my computer and wrote another 364!

But I didn’t, I kept churning out poems, it was part of my daily grind

About anything I could think of, about whatever crossed my mind.

In a year of rhyming, while I thought about every sentence, every word and every letter

Along the way I came to know myself a little better.

I came to understand the importance of words and the power they possess

I came to understand what a great life I have, how lucky I am, how blessed.

I found a celebration in words--I learned it’s not only important how we choose them

But, once selected, it’s even more important deciding how to use them.

For you never know what meaning your initial whispers will pack

Or, after you’ve allowed them to fly, what words will echo back.

With today’s poem those echoes have come full circle which is the reason why

365 poems later...it is time to say goodbye.

Oh I imagine I will write again if you are sad, don’t get fanatical

After a year of writing a daily poem...think of this as a sabbatical. 

When I return fresh from the rest and unconstrained by time

I’ll offer up, not a daily, but perhaps an occasional rhyme.

Until then remember any time you look out your window at the world and are enthralled

You realize in that moment...there is a poet in us all.