I wonder if, in a parallel universe, there’s a neighborhood with all the famous authors and poets. Imagine the Halloween trick-or-treating.
Ray Bradbury would be a reliable source for dandelion wine and dime store lemon drops.
Tolkien would host meals.
Orwell’s decorations would be real, and he’d teach the dangers of communism with rationed candy.
Huxley’s house would have a trippy reputation.
Emily Dickenson would always go as a witch.
Mark Twain would win the decoration contest every year, with lots of classic pumpkins and spiderwebs, and a live band, while the man himself grumpily handed out candy, commenting on costumes with a cutting, obscure wit.
But Hafiz…there’d be no telling with that guy.
Have you read his poem about beetles and the moon?
What Should We Do About That Moon?
A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.
That night a hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered
And did some serious binge drinking.
They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.
Then the ‘night candle’ rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument
Said to his friend – for no apparent
Reason,
“What should we do about that moon?”
Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music
Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.
Officially, I started Halloween as a turkey. I lapsed into a beetle for a few hours, but recovered.
Four music shows in Roanoke, man. What a way to observe the day! It was fun strutting around in my turkey onesie to James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”.
As soon as he’s done with the title line, there’s a funky strummed guitar. Inspiration struck, and I gobbled furiously to the beat.
This evolved into a routine, a suggestion to the wild turkey out on the mountain, a “wingman consultant”, some ways for him to up his game with the wild hens.
“This is what I’d tell him, folks.”
“Aiiiii can’t believe you spent money on your costume. It’s already a given.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever man.”
Much life passed between the silliness. A dear friend can’t dance anymore unless I hold her up, so I did, her Raggedy Ann costumed face resting on my turkey suit. “You okay?”
A nod.
Another show, another friend, mentioning the same story of her husband’s funeral. Then a slight crack in the façade..
“It’s getting a little easier…I guess.”
Man, ain’t that how it goes. Life, that is. Fighting traffic, lugging gear through the drizzle, cherishing friends, lugging more gear, dropping “The Monster Mash” for the millionth time, shoulder hugs for grieving widows, listening to the stories of the mothers and the fathers, strutting like a turkey, waiting for a gas station sandwich…all swirled together and hovered in the air, a mist on Halloween night.
Then I checked my email as I filled up the car at the pump, and turned into a beetle. What should we do about that moon?
Some wiccan in LA is making six figures on Substack (this platform!) with her “dealing with muggle family gatherings” articles and hosting paid full moon rituals over Zoom.
The grocery store billboard peered down across the parking lot, terrifyingly close to Soviet propaganda.
“SAVE.”
How?
I drove into the night, thinking.
When the moon rose orange and waning over the shoulder of the Blue Ridge, I blessed the eastbound highway, but still grasped and strained at the thin air, as if I’d spin a reason to be taken seriously if I frowned hard enough. (Oh, yeah, and help the world.)
But then I got home, and saw the moon higher in the sky, burning cleaner. A light glowed up on the mountain. Just the old radio shed or…perhaps Stingy Jack with his lantern on a Halloween night, resting on his eternal roam.
Gradually, I turned back into a turkey.
I told the truth in a small way but it was trickier than I expected. Something clicked.
I went outside later, and decided that it would be better to wave my arm clean off in reply to the silvery orb in the sky than to frown myself into relevance.
So that’s what I’m doing, whatever that means.
I put on a coat-the first of the season, and trudged through moonlight and dry oak leaves. All was quiet in the cow pasture, but above in the stars, Taurus the Bull played beach ball with the waning Hunter’s Moon.
The vague scent of the dry leaves filled the air, and some animal rustled down by the creek.
Or maybe it was Stingy Jack with his Halloween lantern.
I went back inside.
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