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