• About

Crossing Paths

~ Intersections can reroute our destinies forever

Crossing Paths

Category Archives: All Hallow’s Eve

October’s End

31 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by michael schinker in All Hallow's Eve, poem

≈ 3 Comments

Our neighbor’s apple orchard looks sadly bare,
the harvest’s bounty now pressed into cider and jam.
In the fields, pumpkins and gourds have succeeded
summer’s bumper crop of watermelons,
long gone off to Fourth of July picnics and
family reunions.

moon2_0

By sunset our last pile of leaves had been raked,
left glowing orange in a lazy bonfire, its wispy
shaft of smoke curling upward in the chilly twilight.
Autumn’s lackluster constellations can’t compete
with this evening’s gibbous moon, rising golden
just over the eastern horizon, silhouetting
a lonely grove of bare-boned maple trees.

This year’s festive All Hallows’ Eve begins
to wane into sleepy solemnity as packs of
costumed children retreat indoors to inspect
their cache of candies while jack-o-lantern faces
gradually go dark. Excited laughter dissipates,
leaving the night to echo only the rhythmic
chirping of crickets and an occasional hoot
from a hidden barn owl. My midnight hike
through crumpled beds of zinnias and
marigolds withered dry by frost gradually
turns melancholic.

Such a metaphor, these changing seasons,
to the passage of time and life.
Almost instinctively drawn to muse upon
a sad stanza or two penned by Shelley,
I wonder how a poet so enchanted with
beauty and romance could just as well
be obsessed with graveyards and doom.
Can love and loss be hopelessly connected?

And so I say Good Night, and Farewell
again to yet another October of another year.
I’m walking briskly now, my shoulders
hunched and coat collar turned up turtle-like,
trying to protect my tingling ears from the
pre-dawn’s sudden drop below the freezing
mark, while from a distant church’s steeple
the matins bell of All Saints Day, like an
old man’s lethargic heartbeat, begins to toll
a doleful lament: Death is coming.
Death to all.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Crossing Paths on WordPress.com

Archives

  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • January 2015 (3)
  • December 2014 (6)
  • November 2014 (1)

Categories

  • 2017 (1)
  • 9/11 (1)
  • All Hallow's Eve (1)
  • Armageddon (1)
  • aspens (1)
  • Aylan (1)
  • Buddhist (2)
  • Celtic Christmas (1)
  • Charles Wesley (2)
  • Christmas (11)
  • Christmas Carol (3)
  • Christmas Day (4)
  • crucifixion (1)
  • December (5)
  • earthquake (1)
  • Easter (2)
  • Election 2016 (1)
  • Everest (1)
  • Flo and Kay Lyman (1)
  • Good Friday (1)
  • Happiness (3)
  • Holidays (2)
  • Holocaust (1)
  • Hurricane Harvey (1)
  • ISIS (1)
  • Israel (1)
  • Jesus Christ (15)
  • John F. Kennedy (1)
  • labels (1)
  • Life and death (9)
  • Mars (1)
  • Memorial Day (1)
  • Messiah (4)
  • miracles (1)
  • Nepal (1)
  • New Year's Eve (1)
  • Obsessions (3)
  • pandemic (1)
  • peonies (1)
  • perceptions (2)
  • poem (8)
  • politics (2)
  • Prophecy (4)
  • Refugees (1)
  • religion (6)
  • rescue (1)
  • resurrection (2)
  • Rocky Mountains (1)
  • savantism (1)
  • Smashing Pumpkins (1)
  • Solstice (1)
  • Spring (2)
  • stars (2)
  • Stonehenge (1)
  • suffering (1)
  • Summer (1)
  • Super Moon (1)
  • terrorism (2)
  • Titanic (1)
  • Tolstoy (1)
  • Ukraine (1)
  • Uncategorized (6)
  • vampires (1)
  • war (3)
  • winter (5)

Community

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 75 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Crossing Paths
    • Join 75 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Crossing Paths
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...