Reconciling with Halloween

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Now, Halloween is reputedly a time for witches and warlocks. So did witches and warlocks have no time for love? Moreover, what of their sexual persuasion, and who are we to make assumptions? As for ghosts…I dare say we all have our share of those.

In effect, Halloween is just a date on the calendar. We may well associate it with ‘Trick or Treat’ but I suspect most if not all of us find ourselves playing mind games now and then; with our various selves as well as with others, and they with us. (Let’s face it. Halloween isn’t the only time some of us love or even prefer to wear masks - metaphorically speaking, of course - so no one can read our faces.)

True, Halloween may well be as good a time as any to choose whether to let our ghosts persist in personifying our worst nightmares or invest them with benign fantasy and give peace of mind a fighting chance, whatever it takes, but who needs Halloween for that...?

Some aspects of Halloween have always appealed to and inspired me, especially the concept of a posthumous consciousness which I wholeheartedly embrace. Not all ghosts are nightmarish, of course; some are welcome reminders of happy times spent with loved ones long since passed away and whom I love to revisit, but who needs Halloween for that either?

However we view Halloween, I guess the important thing is to enter into the spirit of things, and enjoy it.

RECONCILING WITH HALLOWEEN

One Halloween at a full moon,

come the witching hour,

live wires humming our tune

You had left me, oh, too soon,

life tasting, oh, so sour,

one Halloween at a full moon

Walking on, an autumnal rain

but a heavenly shower,

live wires humming our tune

A hand slipped gently into mine

like spring to a flower,

one Halloween at a full moon

Love, treading a rare timeline,

kept me company there,

live wires humming our tune

It lifted me, a spirit all but divine,

a light in me forever.

one Halloween at a full moon,

live wires humming our tune

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2016

[Note: This poem first appears under the title ’Taking on Halloween’ in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]