Halloween Analyzation

This poem has two separate inspirations, and came together rather well. The first was my desire to write a poem displaying Halloween as it is actually experienced, with cold and wet in the mornings, bumpy pumpkins and squash, and, because I had recently moved to Alabama, porch swings, weeds, and a farm. In my mind there are two main characters of this poem, a boy and a girl who are cousins or friends, or both. They woke up very, very early and wearily moved to the front porch on the swing, wrapped only in quilts and sweatshirts, to wait for the dawn on Halloween night when something mysterious and magical is rumored to take place.

Here enters the second inspiration: A poem by Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet. I first read this poem when I was in 8th grade. It was embedded in a lovely young adult novel entitled Gypsy, which I have since been unable to locate:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
Where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

This poem has haunted me over the years. Translated from Persian into English, it has a strange, eerie melody, especially with the spiritual subject matter. I loved the idea of a break in the universe at dawn, right on the horizon line, and thus bits and pieces of this poem found their way into Halloween.

So, I melded the two ideas together, along with a few special phrases borrowed from The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (hands like five-pointed stars; white seeds in the earth). To the uninitiated, this may sound like stealing, but in the words of T.S. Eliot, “Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal.” The end result was something that none of these three sources were: a poem dealing with exactly what I wanted it to.

The greatest challenge with Halloween was describing the scene I had so vividly in my head without using ‘common’ words or phrases. I try not to repeat base words in my poems if I can help it, and you’ll notice I only say the word ‘dew’ at the end, and just because it rhymed so nicely. Dew is alluded to through the breath of the field, wet moths, damp quilts, and frosted fields. I also attempted to convey this through the usually-creaky porch swing, now silent in the lubrication of moisture in the air, but I don’t think that came across clearly. Including it was my own vanity, but it’s in the flow of the poem now and I can’t take it out.

I went through about 20 different versions of the first verse before it flowed just right. My only complaint about it now is that I say the word ‘the’ a lot, but at this point I really don’t think it can be helped.

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