My Word for 2024

 

Great minds think alike. Or rather similar Spirits recognize 

a similar need.

My word for 2024 – LIGHT, both the Noun and the Verb, and 

Carmela’s LIGHTER, both the Adjective and the Adverb, share 

the same root:         

            The word “light” comes from Old English leht 

            (Anglian), Leoht (West Saxon), meaning 

            “brightness, radiant energy, that which makes 

             things visible.”

I admit (painfully):

My expertise at finding silver linings?

My ability to focus on the positive?

To date, neither has totally reduced the sometimes-crushing 

weight of our oft-dark World that surprisingly leaves me – 

a Cubs Fan! – wobbly, unable to navigate.

Fortunately, the two inspirational quotes I keep in view on my 

real-life desk top broadcast a qualifying NEVERTHELESS.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s words help me steady my footing, 

look up and find my way.

He’d been asked if given the choice, what era would he live in?  

He acknowledged his land’s troubles and confusion, messes 

and sicknesses.

     “But I know, somehow,” he said, “that only when it’s dark 

       enough can you see the stars.”

        

(Curly Girl Designs)     

The Dark, I’ve learned, can indeed be a Good Thing.

So, thirty-three days into this New Year, I continue to focus all of 

me on the Anyones and Anythings who and that gift me with joy, 

wonder, cause for celebration and/or prompt me to count my 

blessings on a quarter-hour basis.

All those lights, all those nouns, especially the Proper ones, keep 

me keepin’ on.

Ah, the Possibilities!

 

But even more important, I learned all those lights empower me so 

I can do the same for others.

They recharge my batteries so I can burn bright, so I can light the 

way enabling others to keep keepin’ on.

                                                       (Mary Lou Falstreau)

 L.R. Knost’s words remind me. “The broken world waits in 

darkness for the light that is you.” 

Ah, the opportunities!

 Thanks to Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading for hosting 

today’s Poetry Friday. 

 In signing off, I can’t help but recall the motto of my family’s 

electrician Moish Dove who happened to be my father’s lodge 

brother.  “Let there be light!”

Esther Hershenhorn

p.s.

My go-to sources for inspirational cards that help to keep me, 

and thus everyone I know and love, keepin’ on?

Curly Girl Designs and Marylou Falstreau’s Cards and Prints!