December 2025 - Letting Go

Isn’t “letting go” the motto of December? Weeks, days, hours…2025 is dwindling to a nub. We remember the routine; it is an ancient one which nature annually nudges us to repeat. We toast the year that was (and remains still, briefly) and turn toward the cold, the dark, and the unknowns of the year ahead with both resolve and resolutions. December, after all, is our time of practice and rehearsal.

Letting Go

by Carla Schwartz

I still dress for the swim—

a bathing suit,

rash guard shirt and tights,

neoprene socks,

sleeveless wetsuit,

three hoods

and a cap.

     more and more I take on

Each swim, more chilled—

gloves,

earplugs,

a vaseline layer

on my skin.

     dried leaves floating below surface

Each time at the pond,

more time to dress,

more time to undress,

the faster I stroke

against the cold.

     edges      needle-sharp scratches

When I return to shore, I ask myself,

was that enough time? Enough

swim? But as my fingers

begin to curl incurably,

I know that time is coming,

the time I fear, nearing,

the time when I must let go

of swimming.

     water so cold it burns

First, I turn on my back.

    I turn my back

Carla Schwartz is the author of the poetry collections Signs of Marriage; Mother, One More Thing; and Intimacy with the Wind. She is the recipient of the 2023 New England Poetry Club’s E.E. Cummings Prize. Schwartz lives half the time in the greater Boston area, and half the time on an unbridged island in Lake Winnipesaukee. You may learn more about her work at  https://carlapoet.com, or on all social media @cb99videos.