Long about October we see the summer dying,
think aloud and see ghosts, toiling all forward,
Christmas nearing, the final year, time flying,
and turn to repairing friendships, coaxing a word
from lines gone quiet. The whitened mailbox creaks from disuse.
This is the time of the rounded corner,
of the double take of healing
when the faces, future and former,
adjoin in festive feeling.
Stepping in, we hear the muffled growl
of bare embers falling in the hearth, and a standing guest
chants Deus sit propitius with a howl
of jocund cheer, then joins the dinning feast.
Two oh one five,
Now join lang syne;
Two oh one six,
Bring fine, kind tricks.
