Cento for the New Year

What a year!

We hope 2025 finished slow and easy.

We’re still alive and kicking, but trying to kick more carefully.

Enjoyed a year of good health, and a few excellent adventures.

Retired from NASA

And are back up on Juniper Flat.

Saw TUFTED PUFFINS on Haystack Rock

And Puglia was magnificent!

The memory of it still lights our lives.

We are tired, but we are so happy

To be present to the world and to feel into its energy, and wisdom

Despite the twin spectres of AI and a less-than-friendly Big Brother state.

We’re still having a good time with our kids

River life is a constant gift.

Let music stir the air

Be ready to pivot

Out of the house of worry.

Look forward to an artful year

(What is the color of joy?)

One of our famous discussions

And many wonderful books

The beauty of relationship—

May peace abound there.

Life is richer because of friends like you

Please, let us keep giving, keep loving, keep on.

Wishing you much joy in 2026.

Cheers to hope.

                                                                         —Donna & Rich

A note on the poem: As regular readers of Are You With Me Here? know, a cento is a kind of collage poem (with ancient origins as a form of tribute ), assembled and arranged entirely from others’ lines. All the lines assembled for this one were lifted from the holiday greeting cards, poems and letters that Rich and I have received so far this season. So no, we did not ourselves personally retire from NASA, nor travel to Puglia…though we, too, feel blessed by a river, and are still having a good time with our kids!

In this sixth year of composing a New Year’s cento (it only occurred to me this year to share it with subscribing friends also) we began by re-reading the holiday greetings and newsletters received, jotting down lines that met us in some way, but without looking for a theme or other through-line among them. Then, as I began playing with arranging the collected lines and line fragments into the sequence that began to suggest itself, a kind of spirit-of-the-collective appeared, as it does ever year (I have come to trust and even expect this, but the magic of it still always amazes me).

This year, the shared spirit that emerged was a clear, fierce and pervasive joy: a joy that seems to arrive amid —even by way of— the losses, confusions, pleasures, challenges and fears of life; the kind of joy that is not so much an attitude or sentiment as it seems to be a force, and field. I have definitely felt that joy as a palpable and powerful presence in our lives this past year.

And as I have, I have begun to wonder (along with, it seems, many us) if maybe joy is hope’s truest source, force, and home.

For the lines included, we thank Robyn E., Rob & Yumiko, Pat & Mary Anne, Diane D., John & Roseann, Lorraine & Brad, Melanie G., Sandra & Nancy, Ken & Jan, Penelope S., Kendra & David, Steven W., Allison & Juan, Steve & Kate, Wayne & Lynne, Melanie G., Mary G., Stephanie & Ian, Mary & Jim, Gerry & Linda, Melissa M., Drew M, Bob & Brenda and Wendy & Bill.