My Beautiful, Credible Friends

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE FINDING NEW BELIEFS

All my friends are finding new beliefs.
This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees.
In a highly literary and hitherto religiously-indifferent Jew
God whomps on like a genetic generator.
Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach, Bourbon.
Exercise regimens so extreme she merges with machine.
One man marries a woman twenty years younger
and twice in one brunch uses the word verdant;
another’s brick-fisted belligerence gentles
into dementia, and one, after a decade of finical feints and teases
like a sandpiper at the edge of the sea,
decides to die.
Priesthoods and beasthoods, sombers and glees,
high-styled renunciations and avocations of dirt,
sobrieties, satieties, pilgrimages to the very bowels of  being …

All my friends are finding new beliefs
and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track
of the new gods and the new loves,
and the old gods and the old loves,
and the days have daggers, and the mirrors motives,
and the planet’s turning faster and faster in the blackness,
and my nights, and my doubts, and my friends,
my beautiful, credible friends.”

– Christopher Wiman –

As we begin to live our way into this long awaited new year, I reflect on friendships…
near and far,
here and “home”,
past, present, and yet to be known,
lapsed and tended,
cherished and challenging,
liked and loved,
beautiful,
credible.
Your presence in my life matters, immeasurably.

Listen hear to Pádraig Ó Tuama’s beautiful recitation and considerations of this poem.

With love, kindest regards, and best wishes for a New Year shimmering with all that is good and true and beautiful.