Hallowe'en Pumpkin

Kenneth Sherman
From:   Open To Currents. Wolsak and Wynn, 1992

I brought it to decompose
By the fence in our backyard garden
And watched it rot through foul November,
Its deepening orange, a molten, setting sun.

For weeks it held the shock of human expression
Amongst the ordinary sparrows and squirrels
With its mouth's round note of astonishment
And its star-shaped eyes, charred and mournful.

The stem from its head
Which had served as a handle to open
That night of candles and masks
Had withered into the dry worm of a question.

Its dark absence of ears
Now led to a riddling where.
And I could see into its future
All blanketed by white powder

Gradually greeting the compost of April,
Ready for our birth garden
Though what it would bring forth
Would be beauty, not invention.

And peering into its hollow spaces
I recalled the quick eyes of the children
That night by the harvest table,
The determined lines they sketched on flesh.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Kenneth Sherman's works copyright © to the author.