Odyssey of a New Year

Shen Ge
2 min readJan 5, 2024

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Photo by Aleksei Ieshkin on Unsplash

I was asked to write a poem describing a new year with the theme of odyssey. I wanted to write something inspiring but ultimately this is what came to my mind. I suppose that in terms of how I feel, I’m just a concoction of sadness and joy. My emotions seem to undulate quite a bit like the waves of a wide ocean. A lot has happened to me this past year in my personal life and frankly people who know me tell me that I’m handling it better than many others would have. I suppose I have learned having mental breakdowns is not the best way to cope with things; I never hope to reach there again. In any case, without any more potential platitudes, here it is.

The end of the year

comes and touches us too soon

carrying with it a thousand memories

and in those ticking seconds

beautiful unanswerable questions

I ask myself how each of us feel

with each passing year

Decades ago, we were forced to unmoor

from the safe harbor of birth

each of us casted our own sail

subjected to the winds that have since swept us

We navigated past the eddy pools of childhood,

the undulating crests and troughs of teenage years,

and the unforeseen whirlpools of later years

And now under the waxing moon

When the soft silver falls

Shimmering into a new year

Casting light on our worn sails

Will this ship

sink under a great approaching tsunami

or from lurking invisible boulders

or will we continue the odyssey of our lives?

Whatever may come to pass

I only know the winds of change

never has and never will sit still.

We will venture into new places

of our imperfect lives

We may be surprised and even spellbound

because we can cross greater waters

without realizing it.

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Shen Ge
Shen Ge

Written by Shen Ge

Engineer and console operator who helped America land back on the moon 2/22/2024. Enjoys code + poetry. Become a member: https://medium.com/@shenge86/membership

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