I’ve come to East Hampton in summer.
In winter and in spring.
Never before though at Halloween.
To a house decorated with skeletons, skulls.
Ghosts and goblins.
Pumpkins and gourds.
Where for days there are parties.
For children and parents.
Days are nippy.
Excitement inflates the air.
Monsters and witches abound.
Ready to pop-up and scare.
Lynn Benjamin
October 30, 2022
Halloween came and went.
Amid jubilant festivities.
A Phillies win against the Rays.
A championship long overdue.
Occasioning hoopla and parades.
A sight not seen in Philadelphia since 1980.
Halloween, four days before the presidential vote.
A spooky reminder that our country wages two wars.
Both in the name of freedom.
While two candidates wage their own against each other.
Also, in the name of freedom.
Of course, freedom is an ambiguous concept.
Depending on whose perspective one takes.
Halloween amid red and drying leaves.
Falling, crunching beneath feet.
Spectacle in color only weeks ago.
But now, life blood’s gone from nearly every leaf.
As the season steers its way to winter.
The backdrop, celebration, politics, and fall.
I arrange my candy on a tray.
As I’ve done a dozen years times two.
Waiting for eager trick or treaters.
Who’ll pick and choose their prize.
The sun sets quickly,
But, the doorbell is oddly still.
I guess these days, children find their treats elsewhere.
I am left with too much chocolate.
And the realization that time has sprinted forward.
If I run faster, will I ever catch up?
Lynn Benjamin
November 1, 2008
An October pre-dawn walk in Santa Monica
calms, refreshes.
Stars still occupy their places in the sky.
A little chill alerts the maples to drop their leaves.
And despite the palms, succulents, shore, sea,
Halloween is serious business here.
Witches, goblins, ghosts, skeletons proliferate
on lawns, in shop windows.
A little scary till sunshine blooms at the end of streets.
Warming sidewalks.
Pink ribbons begin to light tops of mountains, sea.
By mid-afternoon, there’s no place for spiders, ghouls to hide.
Every inch of the city sparkles.
Back to the usual weekend schedule:
farmers’ market, park, play, nap, beach.
Is it really Halloween season in Santa Monica?
When Ez and Arthur carve pumpkins, don costumes, I suppose it is.
Lynn Benjamin
October 9, 2021