(with thanks to Zechariah 4:10 and Lao Tzu)
Do not despise small beginnings,
for smallness is an easy place to start,
and endings are not truly endings,
but instead, become unlikely voyages
to redemption and recovery, just
past the mind’s horizon. Inadequate,
impatient, and imperfect, we sail anew,
with only tattered truth for navigation,
hope overflowing into currents toward
a better world, fleeing tautened clutches
of fell circumstance, or brutal barriers
that are never half as solid as they seem.
Disregard a dark perspective; despite
dire portents, we can have joyful lives,
gently leaping over floods. From wonder
into wonder, existence opens; wait ‘til
the morass settles, when the water clears—
Arise, and then start moving.
Alison Jennings is a Seattle-based poet who taught humanities and math in public schools before returning to her first love, poetry. She also worked as a journalist and an accountant. Since retirement, she has had a mini-chapbook and 80 other poems published internationally in numerous journals, including Amethyst Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Mslexia, Poetic Sun, Red Door, The Society of Classical Poets, Stone Poetry, and The Raw Art Review, as well as having won 3rd Place/Honorable Mention in several contests.