Old Year Evening

A Carry on Tuesday prompt based on Helen Hunt Jackson’s "New Year’s Morning"

On the fourth day of Christmas the old year made a plea:
"If your love is true, you must forget me,
I’m only a night from old to new, a ring on your jeweled tree,
I must be released, to the woods, to grieve, to say to the past 'you're free.'"
"Only a night from old to new!" That’s how it must be,
The new comes in darkness, undressed of memory,
The new ones are ancient, like a grizzled baby,
The old ones’ reborn, the mulch our confetti!
We’ve charged up the cork, fermented like tea
The singular vintage, as sweet bubbles flee
And for a fleeting instant, as the circles pop, one seems to see
A glimpse of future goals and finished victory,
So much this old familiar road is cast with mystery—
The thought that sows the seed, the lock that carves the key.