The Guide at October Crossing

We made it!

(no! shhh!) she’s putting her garden to sleep; churning the compost:

      Amber, saffron leaves once;

      Nostalgic gourds turned mulch.

              Expire privately as maggots take

              their turn fattening on that life to

              resurrect in crawling-creep.

                         Turn over tired matter with

                          her spiced breath - a new

                          leaf, if you will.

Enter her realm

puckish, she greets us; entrapping with offerings from harvest:

        Sticky-sweet cider slips down throats;

        Bloating meat pies.

                Yeasting ferment froths, souring

                 fog rising from the stealthy

                 clash of frigid air assaulting her

                 hearth.

                            Cozy.

Crossing through

transient passages, the way back already gone; she delights in guiding the foolish astray:

         Footpaths upturned to head tombs;

         Masked residents rise from shadow.

                  Groaning limbs gnarl,

                  break, caging with splintered

                  pikes, hysteric cackle-screech,

                  ricochet; acoustic illusions in

                  ghoulish bait.

                             A true funhouse, which way

                             do we go?

Waylaid

Entreated to witness her haunting work,

pragmatic tasks; a coroner’s hand:

           Shifting light dissolves form lurid;

           Tolling memories, new facts tendered.

                   Fireside ritual rouses, parloring

                   roguery from the festive trick of 

                   familiarity as she changes her

                   veil.

                              Befitting, we find new

                              costumes.

The threshold

we leave her tucking edges of flannel blankets; tending the nursery:

             New flies ready their wings;

             Frost to break dormancy.

                       Succumb to sleep, the

                       incorruptible to rise again,

                       transformed.

                                  A trumpet sounds

                                  our departure - des vu.