You feel it, don't you,
the slow, sad, slipping away of Christmas?
    –the ebbing of joy and hopefulness,
like the fading buzz
    of an exceptionally good glass of wine,
like the last wax dripping from the taper,
    congealing on the evergreens below,
like the unidentifiable fragments of cut-out cookies
    at the bottom of the tin,
like mulled cider gone cold,
    its sediment pooling at the bottom of the mug,
like the CD of carols still in the player,
    that suddenly sound out of place?

Think, think–
what was it you determined to carry forward this time around?
You knew yourself renewing…
but how?

Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.