Guarding the door,
like a bulbus Heimdall,
a blank pumpkin sits,
internally unhallowed,
without gashed gaping maw,
nor knife-notched nose,
nor eyeslits: triangular and odious.
Its inertia, serendipitous,
not for a moment did it greet
children asking
"Treat-or-Treat?!";
Never a one did it glow for.
Encased within, like
those stringy pumpkin guts,
is the puckish Pagan spirit,
craving bones ablaze in a fire;
Lost Loves manifested as moonlit
flaxen apparitions,
finding them Angelic
(yet unchanged),
easily as a ring
found in barmbrack.
A return to the turnip.
Ambling along ferns
rusted that same shade of pumpkin,
pondering the dead, and where
I long for them to reside now;
Rose, with her heaven,
Ryan, his Valhalla.
To each their Kingdom
of eternal inviolate peace.
Barmbrack, also often shortened to brack, is a quick bread with added sultanas and raisins. The bread is associated with Halloween in Ireland, where an item, normally a ring, is placed inside the bread, with the person who receives it considered to be fortunate.
On all Hallow's Eve, the Irish hollowed out Turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes and beets. They placed a light in them to ward off evil spirits and keep Stingy Jack away. These were the original Jack O'Lanterns.
