My List
By Joan Currie

At the end of the year I unfold the paper
like a map I once trusted.
The old words look back at me-
learn this, finish that,
be better, be faster, be more.

I measure the year with a thin ruler:
checkmarks, omissions,
the ache of time spent wandering
where I thought I should have
marched.
I grieve the unused hours,
The bright mornings laid down
carelessly,
as if life were a ledger
and I had failed to balance it.

But this year refuses such accounting.
It rises instead like a bird startled
from tall grass-
sudden, radiant, alive.

How could I have predicted it?
The laughter that came unannounced.
The days so full they tipped over.
The quiet happiness that arrived
without a task list,
sat beside me,
and stayed.

None of it can be crossed off.
None of it fits in neat verbs.
and yet – how true it all was.
How necessary.

So I make a different kind of list now.
I write: notice everything.
I write: follow that which warms the heart.
I write: say yes when joy knocks softly,
and listen when it calls loudly.

Let the new year be generous in ways
I cannot plan.
Let happiness be my work,
and attention my devotion.

I fold the paper gently.
Outside, something begins anew.

Wishing you all the very best for 2026!