Like a reluctant host, I open the door for the New Year

Uneasy and unwilling to suffer more of the same

This year, again, there is so much to close our eyes to:

there is too much ugliness in our post 9/11 world

There are too many questions that need to go unanswered, to be ignored

It seems too much insipid reality that hurls cruelty, hatred, sickness and despair

What horror

The eyes of truth have been gouged from its sockets

–and hopelessly lost with the crumbling of two towers

Erect in our memories,

yet no longer enduring monuments of humanity

Tonight, with the door pushed opened,

I am left to pray for a new order:

May love blanket our loved ones, our friends and community

and cover us with hope, faith and love,

and the strength to do right, to recognize good and act for

a better, just, and, at the core, compassionate world

And I must begin living with these ghosts and refrain from

pulling myself tight into the fetal position

for comfort and some relief

I must stand and repress heaving sighs of despair

Look to those things I hold dear and ensure

They are cared for and do not go neglected

In the long shadows cast by those remarkable towers

– Chris George 

January 2002