Samhain ~ Halloween ~ Hallowmass ~ The Night of the Dead

 A poem from years ago:

source

Now that the young trick-or-treaters are gone,

white candles flicker in the dark silence.

The border between life and death is thin

tonight.  Cats of years past visit til dawn.

The littlest, Red, comes first and then Wicca,

Pierette and Miracle ~ all stay awhile.

While they purr, I sense people who have left

this plane walking in and out of my mind.

I hold each for a long minute, and more

for my dear friend Nancy who would enjoy

watching a film ~ Cat People, maybe, or

Bell, Book and Candle ~ if she were here.

The films play one after another as

we reminisce about decades past

gathering with women in bonfire light, 

drumming, dancing, blessing, and howling

Those revelers scattered over this world

and the next one.  Some returned to childhood

faiths, and some like me became convinced

of Christianity.  Jesus shows up.

I myself am Jewish, he reminds me.

I’m willing to be Christian, but I’m still

wary of paganism ~ though nothing

indigenous is foreign to me. 

My eyes are closed now, and I’m contained in,

enveloped by environment: the warm

and shadowed room and the scent of sage grass

the sure knowledge of trees and homes outside.

I pray to be open to the cross and

the resurrection in Jesus’s presence,

certain we need both faith and good works,

that this isn’t debatable.   Certain.

This thin time is full of earth, air, water

and fire.  Certain I am called to teaching

and word-smithing, but not debate ~ only

witness and testify and remember.

Don’t lie.  To thine own self be true.  I smile. 

Sometimes Jesus sounds so much like Shakespeare

that I recall the King James Bible dates from

exactly the same years.  I love the sound.

And now it’s time to awaken, blow out

the candles, and come home from traditions

present because I made room for them in

my life, made room for Light and for Darkness.

In this thin time, we embrace a wealth of

accumulated experience, we

remind ourselves to increase positives

and decrease negatives.  We hug the earth.

For Sanaa's prompt Poets United: Midweek Motif ~ A Million Years Howl When Voices Whisper Among The Trees 

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© 2019 Susan L. Chast