Poems about Halloween

 

            This Halloween

In late afternoon, through the leaf-losing trees

I come upon the pond between trunks opening,

As if entering into Pan’s amphitheatre;

Mirrored twice tall as deep with golden dapples

And vermillion among verdure tanning across the glass

Beneath a dome of darkening sapphire,

Rippled only by odd acorns impacting

Below ever industrious squirrels,

A brace of ducks that dab closer along the shore

And the silent, shy surfacing of a reserved muskrat,

Almost unseen, shadows in autumnal reflection,

Chipmunks slink among the leaves, rustle

Betrays their search for fallen seeds before snow.

The blue jays and grackles are absent, from sight

And cackle, leaving silence reign in their absence.

As it reverberates round the kettle hole unfound

Now by the humans who this city lake surround,

I wonder what Samhain spirits would visit me

Here today. I am undisguised: my humanity exposed,

But as dusk deepens, tempted I am to stay.

            Samhain Spirits

It is now, though far from home, I feel the souls.

The approach of ghosts noted more strongly

Each day, as orange leaves drift down,

They make their presence felt, creating

Vibrations in the very air, more resonant

Than any organ above an empty tabernacle.

Gliding across an ocean to circle about my abode,

Swirling like the smoke from chestnut fires,

The spirits seek their own at Samhain.