And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
—Meister Eckhart
And suddenly you know it’s time
to shovel the drive. For though snow
still falls, at this moment it’s only
three inches deep and you can still push it easily
with your two wide yellow shovels.
Yes, it’s time to start something new—
though it doesn’t feel new, this
shoving snow from one place to another.
In fact, your shoulders still feel
the efforts of yesterday.
But with each push of the shovels,
the path on the drive is new again. At least
it’s new for a moment, new until snow
fills it in. Then it’s a different kind of new.
How many beginnings are like this?
They don’t feel like beginnings at all?
Or we miss their newness?
Or they feel new only for a moment
before they’ve lost their freshness?
There is magic in beginnings, says Meister Eckhart,
and sometimes we see beginnings all around us,
a new path, a new promise, a new meal.
A new prayer. New snow fall. A new song.
Is it too grand to call it magic, this new calendar year?
Too grand to call it magic, this momentary
clearing on the drive? Too grand to be magic,
this momentary clearing in my thoughts?
Or is it exactly, perhaps, what magic is—
something we allow ourselves to believe,
despite logic, despite reason, something that brings
us great pleasure, makes us question
what we thought we knew, our sense
of what is possible changed.