it is gone by,
a twelve-month,
reasons to celebrate
layered with
cautionary images
and sorrow
as is only fair,
intimate flashes,
discovery,
even to growth,
achingly rich
creative elation,
a dog tail’s broad sweep
of the months,
days racing like
mountain clouds,
slipping away
until now,
flinging solstice
behind us,
finding more light,
we are at the top
of the grade,
minds straining
to cross the divide
into the new,
full of impossible
possibility

___________________________________________
my southern scottish grandmother always brought in the new year with every light on in the house, the front door flung wide, and us that were there “letting out the old and letting in the new”, punch cups of egg nog in hand. the egg nog was her family’s recipe, so full of rum and brandy (I still dilute it with cream or milk) that those who helped her make it always ran the risk of intoxication from the fumes!