This year, next year

23rd March marked the grim anniversary of a year in lockdown: albeit with a bit of light relief when the restrictions were relaxed over the summer. It has not been an easy year, probably, for anyone. It felt important to spend a little bit of time in our session that week looking back and looking forward. We managed to identify some positives, but overall the sense was definitely that the end of this particular period can't come soon enough! 

The very first poem we ever wrote together as a group used colour as a tool for reflection. So does this one as we looked back at the past year and ahead to our hopes for the one to come.

We were having website issues at the time (since, hopefully, resolved) so this is being posted a little later than planned. But that means it is being posted in the week in which we will, finally, be coming back together. Social distancing and facemasks not withstanding, we are very much looking forward to sharing the same physical space once more. Maybe, just maybe the end of a drab grey year is in sight and there are brighter colours on the horizon at last.

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This year has been grey

All I see

Looking out from my attic window

Always the same view

A desk, a computer, an empty grey sky

It has been

Kind of gloomy

Filled with mixed feelings and happenings

This year has been dark grey

The colour of clouds

Announcing that the rain is going to start

But also

Announcing the promise of rainbows after the rain

This difficult year

Will bring something new

The colour of clouds

Where everything seems unclear

All that we wanted was in storage

The clouds were heavy

But they did not rain

Did not let go

All that we wanted stays hidden inside

This year was black

We were in darkness

We didn’t know where we were going

Enclosed in a box

Nobody knows what comes next

Suddenly everything was different

Don’t go here, don’t go there

All this year, for me, was dark

This year

Locked-down

Everyone was afraid

I don’t want to say black,

But instead, mottled grey

This year has also been orange

Like the sky above a zombie apocalypse

So much destruction and death

But also

People reaching out

To help each other

Impossible to say this year has been one colour

Instead

It is all the colours in the same painting

Mixed in chaos and uncertainty

We see darkness and grey but also flashes of yellow

This colour, created

Is indescribable

And this year has also been light blue

The colour of heaven

A pandemic bringing me closer to God

And

With all that we have faced

Heaven has not changed

The sky is still blue

And next year?

Next year is white

Because it is still empty

We don’t know, yet, what we will write on it

Still thinking

What is the plan for the future

You have to draw it, paint it, create it

Next year I hope will be green

A place that doesn’t feel like the city

Where you can step outside the door and walk in the woods

Next year will be green and yellow

A year of changes, of hope and of new life

Green with fresh air and new life

Yellow with the happiness of the sun rising

Yellow

And we are waiting for it to happen

This bright time

With everything clear and shining

Next year will be bright white

Because I’m sure everyone will be free

Now we are locked,

Inside our houses,

Inside our minds

But white is the colour of hope, peace and deliverance

Next year will be blue

I hope it is going to be beautiful

All the struggles over

I still give thanks for the gift of life

But this year

Has not been easy

We look forward

To peace, happiness and rejoicing

Next year will be blue

The ending of all this time

Will bring more hope

And

When the sky is blue

It allows me to dream

Sky blue

The colour that makes me feel calm, peaceful, relaxed

The colour of the inner peace I’m looking for

The colour of the inner peace I will find

Next year will still be light blue

Because

Despite all that we went through

Heaven has not, will not change

The sky is still blue.