Perspective this year

Hello Universe 248

2025 is about to go away in less than 48 hours. On its way out, it will leave us with memories, gifts, scars, and perspective.

One of the feelings I chased with Hello Universe this year was the feeling of writing exactly what I wanted to communicate with a topic. As a poet trying to make fun, thought-provoking rhymes, I often found that the poems I wrote would evolve as I wrote them. The necessity for it to rhyme in a certain way made me adjust my initial idea, often for the better. Something that would start off as funny might end up becoming more serious in the final product, and so on. But the pursuit this year was to develop a vision or an idea first, and then find the joy in delivering that exact vision and idea in the final poem.

On this metric, the poem “Ancestors” that I wrote in September was my biggest success. I had a specific idea the moment I started writing it, and I delivered exactly that with my final published post. I didn’t even know then, that twenty days after I published that poem, my own mother would leave this earth and become one of my ancestors. It was heartening then, that it was something she got to read in her last days, and that it touched her heart too.

I miss my mother a lot. It will soon be three months since she has left us. For all that it gave me, 2025 took away so much more, and that’s how it is. My loved ones and I have done our best to find back the meaning in our lives, and it is still a work in progress.

But as she is now an ancestor, it feels fitting to reshare the poem which captured my exact vision and which sits closest to my heart this year, as the final post of Hello Universe in 2025. A poem about the single drops of human lives in the vastness of the ocean of time. A poem about the people who made me, at the end of a year that made me. A poem that I continue to be inspired by.

Alright, poem starts in 3… 2… 1!

---

I imagine my ancestors
sitting around
a fire so bright
you could see it 'cross town.

Discussing what they could do
what they could say
to make the world they lived in
better each day.

They'd live in their means and
they'd stretch out their bounds.
Part of their communities,
cities, and towns.

They'd say, 
"Let life throw it at us, we will play.
We'll hit it right back,
send it back on its way."

Determined to solve every
problem they faced.
To find hidden joy in
each race that they raced.

Aware of their flaws and
their limits as well.
But always adapting
when change came to dwell.

They somehow kept hold of
each rock on their tread.
And kept slowly walking,
not knowing ahead.

Some of them flattened
and some of them peaked.
And with time there are also
traits that repeat.

Like being obstinate
and just standing your ground.
Like finding the knowledge
when it's not around.

Like having an eye and 
and ear for art.
Contributing to it
somehow with your heart.

Like finding yet newer ways
of getting hurt.
Yet somehow, someway,
rising back from the dirt.

Like finding the wonder
in drops of the rain.
Like finding the humor
in all that's mundane.

These traits are connections 
and echoes through time.
My real identity:
the traits that still rhyme.

I imagine those too
whose ancestor I'll be.
The ones whose time is
on its way to be.

The ones who'll inherit
this way of their being.
Whose blue will be blue
and whose green will be green.

The ones who'll see me as
a flash of the past.
Who even knows how long 
will my memory last?

But one thing's for certain
they'll be me as much
as I have myself had 
my ancestors' touch.

They'll also be wondering
someday of their past.
And maybe they'll come 
read this poem at last.

To give them a mirror to their
ancient selves.
And help them decode
their identities themselves.

---

That’s it! Thanks for reading edition 248 of Hello Universe. Rewriting this poem and sharing it again was cathartic and I do feel much better. I am happy that you are here to read these words, dear reader, and it means a lot to step in to the new year with you.

I wish you an amazing 2026, filled with celebrations and time with loved ones. Hug your people extra tight, eat that last slice of dessert, go crazy. A new year and a new life is on its way.

I wonder, what is your biggest memory of 2025?

Share your thoughts with the Hello Universe community in the comments below.

Here’s a great mix to play during the new year’s party!

That’s it for this week, see you next Tuesday!