Aphelion Issue 301, Volume 28
December 2024 / January 2025
 
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Samhain Spirit

by Gary Shugar


It’s Samhain Eve, or Halloween, the veil becomes unbound
Between the lands of life and death, and spirits move around.

I stop in front of the old house in which I used to live;
Then, Oh! What feelings fill my heart, what joy my memories give.

For Halloween was always my most favorite time of all,
With decoration, trick-or-treat, and children come to call.

They walk up to the lighted house and then the bell they ring.
All dressed up in their costumes, and “trick-or-treat” they sing.

My wife appears soon at the door, gives candy and a smile.
Her smile is the most precious thing I’ve seen in quite a while.

I wait until it is past nine and she turns off the light,
Then through the fastened door I pass on this enchanted night.

I enter through the bedroom door and there I see my wife,
As lovely now, to my dead eyes, as she had been in life.

She turns about, raises her head and she looks straight at me,
Though what she feels, I do not know, for me she cannot see.

A wondrous smile lights up her face, as pretty as can be,
She holds this pose for moments long. Is she remembering me?

I return my ghostly form into the land of shadows,
But I had seen, in my short stay, all that really matters.

Now many Halloweens have passed, but this one is most grand,
For now beside me is my wife and we walk hand in hand.


© 2024 Gary Shugar

Gary Shugar has previously been published in Aphelion.

Find more by Gary Shugar in the Author Index.