HALLOWEEN
She filled her hands
With winter light and November's
Crows, a calcophany of wings
Against the blue of early evening.
Children used to come here.
There were hills and copses and woods
Challenging the imagination with shadows
Caught alive in stories of the Fall.
The road ended at her mouth,
Full of weeds and drifting terrors
Searching for a body to accompany
During the dark evenings of the waning year.
Shaken, she reaches for the twilight
As if it were a vessel of some kind,
Easy on any sea, unmoved and with sails
Painted in the colors of forgetting.
To dream was to vanish into memory,
The twinkle of an eye,
The brush of a hand across a shoulder,
No place for sharing stories, whispering.
This time of year is full of stuff
Like this, fine of hand and bathed
In a crystal construct made of wood,
Made of fire, made of singing.
She was not given to understand
More of this than her hands covered
With the cool and brilliant light.
She wishes us luck as we continue
Toward the shoreline, the same light
Glinting off the water, infecting
Our minds, making everything in life
A challenge and the turning of the days
Borne on the backs of black birds
Exploding time with cackling and shrieking.
THE BURN
There are no stars in the sky tonight.
It is not because of the clouds.
The ego is so immense.
I feel I have called this to myself.
