December hits me like an April 9th,
an impending feast and burden
as muscles ache in Winter’s grasp –
that majestic accident
at the intersection of old and new.

There is no grace in it, I say
in contemplating what once was,
now something limited and mortal
and subject to decay –
supposedly wiser but never quite so.

In that collision where everything
is flying by like imaginary money
through the checkout stands
in paper or plastic –
I see the stillness of December

I see the peaceful reflection,
the quiet solitude,
the uneasy understanding
that new will always collide with old –
that the warmest heart will end up cold

That people spend a year forgetting
and one day remembering,
that as the year concludes, I turn inward
to find myself older, colder
and December hits me like an April 9th.