“There is no use in keeping a ledger
of all that has gone wrong.
The birds do not.
The river does not.
Morning arrives, as it always does
unafraid of beginning.
You, too, may begin again.
Forget the failed attempts,
the words you should not have said,
the long ache of waiting
for something that never came.
There is no refund
for time spent in sorrow,
but there is a meadow ahead
and you may still walk through it.
You have breath.
You have bones that bend.
You have the old trees,
and they do not remember
your mistakes.
So what if you failed.
So what if fear still knocks.
Answer the door.
Let it come in and sit beside you
but do not hand it your days.
Instead, spend them
on the sweet blush of an apple,
on the way the swan glides
overhead with wings
that make music of the sky.
On the shape your cat makes
as she sits in the sunlit window.
Spend them on kindness.
On praise.
On laughter you did not expect.
Let your life be the poem
you did not plan to write,
but wrote anyway
in the soft ink of now.
And if you must,
fail with love.
Fall with grace.
Begin again
like the leaf
that doesn’t ask
whether it’s time
it simply lets go
and trusts the ground
to catch it.”
Angi Sullins
Chorlton Unitarians 