Friday, October 30, 2015

And Visions of...Snickers Bars...Danced in Their Heads


Halloween
(Cora May Preble)
I'm not afraid on Halloween
Because my Mother said
I should not fear those funny things
But laugh at them instead.



For orange faces in the night
That stare with eyes so wide,
Are only pumpkins on a porch
With candlelight inside.
And there are no such things as ghosts . . .
Those figures shining white,
Are only children just like me
Wrapped up in sheets so tight.


I do not fear a single thing
On Halloween you see,
Because I know they really are
Not what they seem to be.
For ghosts and goblins, witches, spooks,
And other scary folks
We hear about on Halloween
Are really only jokes.













Halloween

We mask our faces
and wear strange hats,



and moan like witches
and screech like cats,


and jump like goblins
and thump like elves,


and almost manage
to scare ourselves!
















Who Will Trick-or-Treat With Me?
The first year she was a pumpkin
and she donned a bright orange smock.
Her daddy took her trick-or-treating,
though she had not learned to walk.


The next year she was a bunny
and on one leg, she would hop
while her left ear stood up straight
and the right would swing and flop.


Then a bride costume from Grandpa;
a long skirt and lacy blouse,
but she tripped over the train . . .
so daddy carried her to each house.


The fourth year brought us Lion King
and she roared both day and night.
She was either "Simba" or was "Nala."
(I never could get that right!)


The next Halloween as she got dressed,
she just kept on asking why--
if she was indeed "Supergirl,"
why then could she not fly?


Her sixth year, she was all in pink
protecting us all from danger,
as she kicked and "karate-chopped" the air
as "Kimberly, the Power Ranger."


When she was seven, she wore a yellow gown.
She was "Beauty," to say the least,
insisting that her little sister,
by default, was the "Beast."


In my heart I knew the time would come;
and this year our walk together ends.
She said, "it's not cool for mom to go;
I want to walk with all my friends."


So, I'm figuring out what I will say;
rehearsing one excuse after another,
in case she notices the "ghost" behind her
walks a little bit like her mother!


And I still have Halloweens to come;
my other daughter is only three.
What worries me is . . . when she grows up,
who will trick or treat with me?


































Aaron the froggie

Josh the froggie
Levi the froggie





Grandma Millie and a host of spooky characters!







Backward, turn backward,
O Time, in your flight
make me a child again
just for to-night!
~Elizabeth Akers Allen