New Beginnings- A New Morning

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Bob Dylan's 1970 masterpiece New Morning encapsulates exactly what the title implies. The old barn doors are cracked open and sunshine is peeking through. A deep blue sky is juxtaposed against a winters landscape, opening up new beginnings. Life changes- and if art imitates life- then documenting those miraculous shifts life takes can make them all the more worthwhile.

I think Richard Wilbur's poem, "The Beautiful Changes"- jives with Bob's song, here. Wilbur contends that beautiful changes are amplified by the way one holds something beautiful- "your hands hold roses in a way that says there not only yours"-affirming that the best changes in life are shared. I'll post a Spotify link to the song and Wilbur's poem below. Happy new year!


https://open.spotify.com/track/1FIrnH3Dme6EyYNnd96svn

The Beautiful Changes

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies 
On water; it glides 
So from the walker, it turns 
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes. 

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   
As a mantis, arranged 
On a green leaf, grows 
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows. 

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   
In such kind ways,   
Wishing ever to sunder 
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

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