It seemed a good time to assess the past several weeks of verse by crafting a ReVerse. I had every intention of doing a sevenling daily in the new year for January…then work, duty, and caregiving got in the way. Still, it is a good start to a new year, one of which I am optimistically hopeful. 

Even though 2023 promises to be a shitshow on the world’s stage. The inmates truly in charge of and running the place here in the US now, and elsewhere insanity is raging unchecked…unprovoked aggression and cruelty, war crimes, nuclear saber rattling by unhinged egomaniacs, lingering COVID. It’s a mess. But we are a resilient lot, we humans. And there is still, there is always a reason to be grateful for each second of breath, of life. 

Take care of yourselves, be kind, don’t lose hope, embrace the moment. Peace to you. 


A ReVerse - 8 January 2023

the trees will show me
a wise soul will surrender
in our hearts we know
the winds come
the sum of a life
wisdom to ponder 
beauty in simplicity 
anything but bleak
singed with loss, happy milestones, grief…
for all these beautiful years…decades
there's something in the air, conjuring the dawn in afterglow
was it barbarians at the gate caused Rome to fall, or complicity?

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time.