The Twelfth of the Twelfth

It is slow and quiet, here.  I feel the same.  Forty-six years; the first without my Mom.  I set up the Christmas village under the tree.  No one in the room but me.  The minutes feel soft today. Falling slow like snowflakes.  The twelfth of the twelfth always seemed to have some sort of mystical symmetry to me.  This time, most of that is hidden.  I feel worn, partially erased.  Thin.