All Hallows Eve

There will be no Trick-or-Treaters again this year

at the far end of Pleasant Street where I live,

no little ghosts or goblins, witches or super-heroes,

no rock stars or princesses of the Disney ilk, nor villains,

no little knocks on my door by tiny hands, barely heard,

no “Trick or Treats” on my opening to them, parents

with watchful eyes standing in the background among the shadows,

cautious, and no big bowl of candy, Snickers and 3 Musketeers,

Milk and Dark chocolate, almonds or none, no Gummy Bears,

Tootsie Rolls, or Tootsie Pops, no M&Ms, no big bowl at all

waiting by my door, just as there hasn’t been one there in past years,

no need. Not even the older teenagers with malice in mind

dare venture way out where I live, a long dark walk

through darker woods, the noise of unseen things

staring out, my pumpkins safe, again, from pranksters,

protected, perhaps, by the lost souls of Halloween

rising from their graves, or where they fell down dead, to roam

the small parcel of time and place I share with them, isolated,

these old souls set free this one night of the year,

All Hallows Eve, returning and restless. 

After the Darkness

After the darkness is over, the chaos

and uncertainty – afraid and waiting –

we will need a new candle to light the way,

one small flame flickering to guide our steps.

A Christmas Poem

We long for peace, beg for it,

that peace of the Christmas season

where the nativity and the creche

remind us of long ago’s anticipation

of Christmas morning, stockings hung full

and presents wrapped and bowed under the tree,

anticipating the peace of the season, goodwill

to men, only to find it gone now, packed away

with the tinsel and the ornaments, recycled

with the tree, denuded and placed at the end

of the driveway for pick up, or boxed up

with the artificial trees crammed back

into their boxes they never seemed to fit

into once removed, taped shut or bound

with cords tightly tied, or perhaps the peace

of the season is returned or exchanged

like the gift we didn’t really want, found

tacky and taken back, refunded, replaced.

 

Maybe if it came wrapped in a large sparkly box

bearing the logo of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior,

Bloomingdale’s or Neiman Marcus, Guggi

or Chanel, instead of a manger birth born

into poverty, a common laborer, we might more

readily recognize it, that Peace of the season,

year-round, finding it within ourselves, within each other,

kept there for sharing, not hidden away, locked up

for safe keeping, this Peace we long for,

this Peace of the season, Peace on Earth,

Good Will toward men.

Revelations

He is one of the beautiful birds, raucous

but beautiful, with his hues of blue

and white and gray and black, his head tufted

and his call sharp, loud and shrill in the morning

hours around the feeders, bullying off the smaller

birds to gorge himself and his mates on the sunflower

seeds we provide for them all, the small ones flickering in,

grabbing a seed, and flickering away under watchful eyes;

 

There were six of them; now there are five:

 

one lone bird ground feeding, undisturbed, and a small dog,

mine, let loose, onto the chase, and he ran off, not flew, but ran

into the brush, a clean escape, running, walking fast, as he spent

the rest of the day, grounded, undisturbed, yet fearful, cautious,

walking, into the early evening … and the next morning, too, lacking

signs of injury, no dazed look, glazed look of a closed window

encounter, reflecting the outside, no broken wing, no signs of it,

just not flying, no obvious distress … one lone bird …

 

just a body and a pile of leaves, hues of blue and white,

gray and black, silenced and still amidst green turned to gold

and rust, muted colors, beautiful even in his passing, touching

our lives, strangers here in the wild, nature’s mysteries,

nature’s way revealed to us here in our own back yard.