The last day of the year
wakes up still and dark,
like the dawn before it,
but I remind this day
that it is special.
I tell the day it is the last of its kind.
I tell my children too,
in a whispery voice
that I use for wonder.
We will never live
inside this year again,
which is true for every moment
but there is power
in a day that the whole world
watches fade away.
So we take sheets of paper,
and we fit our dreams for the next year
into the shape of words,
and also for the things we don’t want
to carry any more,
the regrets
the grudges
the fatigue
they fit on separate sheets,
messy and heavy and true,
and we burn them in the wood stove
one by one,
watching the fire
swallow our hurts
and turn them
into light.