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Haunted Pumpkin Walk

Marmora Lion's Park 2007


Councilor Cathie replies to my Halloween email with a request for me to fill in for a sick volunteer. She needs help carving nine pumpkins and placing other spooky decorations around the village's beautiful main park beside the Crowe River. Her idea is to have trick or treaters follow the park's circular paths along a haunted pumpkin walk to several candy stations -

Tomorrow birds will feed
on the drying seeds
we drop in haste

At dusk we return to the park. I'm no longer a particularly social being, having many years service as a village librarian. I find I now prefer the rare, but always honest, awareness in wild animals, a few fellow crazed poets, and solitary monks. But handing out candy to children on All Hallows Eve appeals to me. I set down the plastic cauldron of candy, break a large weed bedraggled branch from the muddy river bank, and -

At the first bend
black & white dog & warlock
greet stirring river mist

Tiny witch
names me leprechaun:
young eyes still clear

4-year-old boy
in a skeleton suit
will be me in 55 years

My small dog
leaves just once
to visit another dog

Slowly shadows
circle the park
swirling dead leaves

The monster mash
makes my stupid feet move
into the mystic

Fairy princess
after fairy princess
many kingdoms on display





Chris Faiers
"Cricket"
November 2007



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comments to weed@wussu.com
revised 4 December 2007
URL http://www.eelpie.org/cricket/haunted_pumpkin.htm