The hills in autumn are hawk-colored.
The wind flaps and screeches through dry straw,
burlap and denim wait to be stuffed and faces painted on.
Masked, we ride the wings of Horus into the dead season.
Corn husks twist into figures. Gray-white sky begs
for a hag’s silhouette, and chrysanthemums adorn the steps.
The fool grins with apple seeds in his teeth.
At night, he’ll be lit from within, smiling at tricksters,
the brightest fruit of the harvest carved.
Our bribes and ceremonies only hold for so long,
Then we must trade: candy for coins, costumes for names,
and all souls for the crook and flail.
Author notes
Yeah, yeah, I know it's early for Halloween, but autumn fell early this year-- it's been an unseasonably cool summer anyway, and then yesterday the temperature dropped 30 degrees in just a few hours. Goodbye summer, hello fall!
Also, thoughts about the ending would be appreciated. I wrestled with the last stanza several times and I'm not entirely satisfied.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Fall preferred
I like fall better anyway. As always I like your poem here. Your lens on the world is a fun and unique one. Almost like an optimist writing through a penitent scope on the world.
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Sorry I wasn't finished.
Not my usual type of poem so I struggle with it a bit. I usually fight with anything that isn't rhythm and rhyme. That's a reflection on me not your poem. Truthfully your title is lost on me because I have no clue what it means. I also struggle with imagery. I like your first line though. It took me a couple of tries, then I realized that was an interesting way to say everything was brown and drab. I like the picture the second stanza paints even though part of the meaning of it's first line eludes me. I like the description of the pumpkin. I didn't have a clue what the first line meant until I read the rest of the stanza. As for your last stanza...the meaning of that last line is unclear to me (like a lot of things). For suggestions all I could come up with was - and the truce we've {got}or{bought] will be gone. - for a second line. Ok...now I'm done.
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I'm generally not a rhyme sort of gal, and I have my own subtle rhythms. The title and the poem itself refers to Horus, an Egyptian god, who is depicted as a falcon, or a man with a falcon's head. He was the son of Isis and Osiris; he is the god of the sky and life. This poem began one autumn day last year when I was driving to work. The grass had already turned to straw, and I saw a hawk fly across the white-gray sky, and I thought, "Horus, is that you?" I wrote the images down, and it's taken this long for a poem to formulate in me. I'm glad you caught the brown, drab imagery of the poetry-- autumn is the part of the year where everything dies, it's the same color as a hawk, yet Horus is associated with life.
The last stanza fuses modern beliefs (Halloween) with the ancient beliefs. Halloween began as a pagan holiday, the part of the year when it was believed the veil between worlds was the thinnest. Christians took the existing holiday and turned it into All Hallow's. The sentiments are the same-- we have certain rituals we go through year after year, even if we don't think about what they mean. Halloween is the staving off of death and evil.
In the end, death is inescapable. Horus eventually flies away. We trade candy for coins-- we grow up, grow old, and die. Coins are placed over our eyes.
Costumes for names-- we grow up, stop trick-or-treating, and die. In the ancient Egyptian beliefs, (as in most belief systems) names were very important. When you died, you had to name yourself before the judge of the under world, and it was determined whether your soul could pass on.
All souls for the crook and flail-- All souls refers to All Hallow's Eve, or All Soul's, the modern, Christianized belief. We die, and trade in for the crook and flail-- the ultimate symbol of the Egyptian beliefs, the crook and flail carried by Pharoah's to symbolize life and power.
Hope that helps.
Pie
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Not my usual type of poem,
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