Happy Halloween!
Everyone seems to make such a fuss over this event, I can’t say I’ve really bothered. The one thing I have done is used it as an excuse for going out for a meal with friends and, typical me, to write a poem.
Halloween has been an event celebrated for hundreds of years, though it wasn’t about the sweets then, it was about the spirits. The people who celebrated Samhain, as it was then, believe this night every year to be the night where the “veil” between life and death is the thinnest, meaning the spirits of the dead are closer to us. They believed that the spirits of the dead may return home. Being a Gaelic festival, traditionally Celtic, Samhain is also the end of the harvest season; and greets the winter and the darker months ahead. Many still celebrate this now, and I have decided to base my poem for Halloween on this belief.

Samhain spirits.

Samhain spirits come out tonight,
once a year they are freed
the dead come closer to the life
becoming more than memories.
Leaving behind the seasons of produce,
of warmth and comfort and light.
the collected fruits shall be put to use
and the day soon becomes night.
Visiting home, the spirits feast
on the fruits of the labour from previous seasons.
Ghostly figures tease and tease
their living company, for no reason.
For one night only the Samhain spirits
come out of hiding into the world.
They mingle easily with the living
the living spirits, new, with the spirits old.

Copyright © 2013 Natalie Cotterill.