The New Year, the New Sabbath

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

“The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals” ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The sameness comes again.  The sameness comes

As difference.  Paradox dwells ever new.

The new year comes.  A new love comes.  The drums

Are muffled, silent.  Streams are always new

And never new.  Siddhartha, holy, held

The paradox as sacred — and why not?

The new and old are equals as they meld

Unchangingly while changing.  Each is fraught

Yet calm forever.  Though the moment goes

Forever into nothingness, blink stays.

It strays, more, more than merely something, grows

And glows as timeless as a Sabbath’s rays.

  What changes changes not.  The more things change,

     The more they stay eternal . . . more than strange.

©  Phillip Whidden