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Page: Profile: Poetry
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Poem Specs
VxPoem ID: 34547
Category:
pagan_spirituality
Posted: October 28th. 2008 2:41:04 PM
Views: 319 |
Ghosts of Samhain
by Airy Ace
Age Group: Adult
A straw man in the shivering field looks lonely for crows
Icy gray skies, yet to descend, hide an early sunset
Our idle plow will shine with frost this night
Beneath wooded hills fat groundhogs sleep
The end of a day at the year's end
That high point where the pendulum stops
Before the wheel of seasons turns again
There between what is and what was
A door is laid open to ghosts
Candle lit windows guide ancestors home
We make a place at the table for them
Empty rooms in our hearts where once they lived
Will be filled once again at Samhain
Great grandmother, see the thrown clay pots you kilned long ago
That held your briny winter stores down in the root cellar
Up above, the smell of stew fills our house
We share our harvest with you this night
Celebrate us as we honor you
Then up from the table take great grandfather' s hand
And dance with your family once again
To music that you've handed down
Played once more on the same piano
Your lovely daughter's half blind, grandmother in her chair
But I can tell by her smile that she sees you are here
Now don't argue with your son-in-law
By now you should learn to get along
Our children never knew grandfather
All those tricks he could do with his slight of hand
He died in the blizzard of March eighty-eight
Out gathering wood for a fire
That burns now as it did that night
Our parents are here, the whole family has gathered
Come here and see the sparkling eyes of our babies
Stay with us please but go if you must
Though now you travel beyond the veil
You will always be welcome back home
In frigid nights ahead stay warm in our hearts
Until merry we meet in Summerland
We'll guide you to our open arms
With candles that burn at Samhain
Author's Notes: Stories come to us of a Celtic tradition of placing an extra plate at the dinner table at Samhain, it being a time when the veil between the spirit world and material world is most permeable. Indeed, ghosts of
ancestors follow candles placed in windows to guide them back to the living where once again they can share a meal and bathe in Earthly love.
This is a song with yet unwritten music.
Author's Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan
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