I wanted to steal the day,
roll it up tight and tie it with greed
so no one else would have it.

My desire to place it in the bottom of my bag
where dark resides with trinkets of past,
forgotten and tarnished from scraping
and jostling against one another.

I didn’t want to surrender soft fog falling across
my path haloing tree, a thin veil guise with
glistening eyes following my travel.

This day sun rose bereaved by thick grey clouds,
my face moist, not from exertion but
gentle mist kissing as I passed through her kingdom.

This day I wanted to last forever, her dense quiet,
my steps not hollow or clicking down the walk,
but a fluid drift naive to sleeping souls
behind shuttered doors or under dense bush,
along sullen stream, or within towering aspen.

My selfish heart,
slivered by that which I did not call to,
that which came without invocation,
ached to impound this treasured day,
safely kept from ruin.

Instead,
this day I stopped, not to rob
but embrace that which opened
before my eyes,
a fullness unfurled to the unknown,
a place to slow and rest,
a place to be and take with me
memory to last through eternity.

.
.
.

Author’s Note:

A blessed Samhain. A holy All Saint’s Day. Feliz Dia de los Muertos.