All Hallows

Softly cursing in the graveyard on 4th
Behind the church, an old man picks up detritus,
The Halloween revelers vanished
Like the years, overnight. He harvests more
Than sticks, cupped leaves that creep along the brick walk
Like hands, but wrappers, cans. Let screaming teens
Have their carefree terror. With luck, ignorance
Will last longer than they want, the truth
Not haunt them with its frisson, its sudden touch
Like a breeze with teeth on the skin, the body
Seasonal, a pagan reference,
A secretly held belief. New superstitions fail
To quell the old, the gut certain of the gut,
This the one time and place, the horror
That there are no shadows, no spirits,
That one’s own acts will in the end explain
So much sorrow, each day the mystic passage
Between worlds, breath the marvelous gift
And breadth of what is sacred. He’s clearing
Leaves now off one particular stone.
Children know. They just pretend they don’t
Like peasants in the druid days of old
Samhain, burning all at the field’s edge.
Each day leaves us bereft and yet, unlike
The scattering trees, we hold on. There are
No ghosts. The dead can’t return. They never left.

                                                          —David Moolten