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Letters to the Great Pumpkin 2017
Feb. 5th, 2018 11:16 amDear Great Pumpkin.
My eyes are full of wings. The circling and flapping of ebony black feathers has become an endless susurrus both waking and sleeping, and I have been slow to realize that this sky full of darting black shapes, this seemingly chaotic aerial dance from Dreamlands to Murphy Street is a gift from you.
The first cluster sprang up into the sky at the dying of the year, and I was as startled as all the other children, and just as fearful. Although I listened to the cacophony of their harsh cries to one another, I couldn’t hear the song within the noise. But you have set the birds upon me, pecking me nigh to death until understanding finally dawns.
All I can offer in apology for my foolishness and inability to understand is that I was angry, and when I am angry I cannot see clearly or think kindly. I was so, so angry about how few children dared to come out of their homes and celebrate with you through the changing of the seasons last year. I was angry at how many children complacently thought candy was theirs by right just by virtue of being themselves, without the journey into the night and asking, without the vigil of sincerity in a pumpkin patch.
Their lack of revelry was something I took too personally. I was frustrated as well by the children who cast aside their costumes, which lie in heaps in second-hand stores, plaintive for a second life; costumes dreaming of a second chance to delight and frolic and dare the door to door dance. I was frustrated by the children too simple-minded to do more than drape white sheets over their heads and wave their arms to frighten the smaller ones, and intimidate them into handing back the sweet spoils of their daring. I was glad to see the ravens stripping meat from those bones as they trip and fall.
The scarecrow scattered the flocks away into a stormy season, and the fields were left bare after the autumn harvest. Fallow but rotting, they lay empty and wasted in the thin sunlight of the wintertime, and we all held one another close while we shivered under that gourd-headed fool’s gaze. But then the birds flocked back to lurk above me on the power lines, and with a clearer head I started to read them as notes on your own staves, as the tune of the Great Pumpkin’s new year dance.
I have discovered that the heart in this one troubled bird is too small to nourish this much anger. I thought of myself as One is for Sorrow, and a sorrowful raven I made soaring over the sea and lands. I looked at everything. I remembered what I saw, and I gave it voice in the patterns and maps of the ground laid out below. I forgot that ravens first belonged to you, not the hooded grey traveler who borrows our council and bribes us for what we would whisper of truth. Fenrir swallowed the sun, but the coughed it up again, and we are all safe from the latest Ragnarok with birds singing of another in the offing. Of my worst fault, there were brief moments of rage at the fighting when I forgot what it meant that I was a pair.
But here on the threshold of the new year I remember what sacred trust of soul conveyance each night-shrouded bird holds in their talons. Through the year, we gather the lost souls and shepherd them on their way to the other side, down the longest road of all. If we psychopomps are more numerous this year, it is because so many children laid aside their true masks to become grownups, and leave us to soar along new skies with you and the wilder hunt. What solemn, strange pride beats in each corvid breast, to bear such gravid responsibility as the safe passage for another soul. And so I close my eyes for a moment in silent recognition for all that has passed away. It is up to us to move our sacred trust to the next journey.
If I find mercy in your darkly grinning visage, let it be for this: I am grateful. For my partner raven who thinks too much - he reminds me that Two are for Mirth. He flies beside my wingtip, and lands to huddle with me under the leaves in the storms sharing warmth, and for him I thank you endlessly. For the rest of my myriad flock that roves hither and yon, and bickers good-naturedly over the broken pumpkin seeds in the fields, I am likewise endlessly glad. Most of all, I am grateful for the dreams of feathers which you have sent to remind me of why we all have wings, and why we breathe and think and remember.
So here I lie, simultaneously a crow-pecked skeleton leaning against a gourd grinning sightlessly up to the sky and the bird who perches upon that same skull, warm and full of the taste of a good eyeball. I am both, and I am neither, but my eyes are still full of wind and stars, and I am remembering how to dream and dare again.
I remain yours.
My eyes are full of wings. The circling and flapping of ebony black feathers has become an endless susurrus both waking and sleeping, and I have been slow to realize that this sky full of darting black shapes, this seemingly chaotic aerial dance from Dreamlands to Murphy Street is a gift from you.
The first cluster sprang up into the sky at the dying of the year, and I was as startled as all the other children, and just as fearful. Although I listened to the cacophony of their harsh cries to one another, I couldn’t hear the song within the noise. But you have set the birds upon me, pecking me nigh to death until understanding finally dawns.
All I can offer in apology for my foolishness and inability to understand is that I was angry, and when I am angry I cannot see clearly or think kindly. I was so, so angry about how few children dared to come out of their homes and celebrate with you through the changing of the seasons last year. I was angry at how many children complacently thought candy was theirs by right just by virtue of being themselves, without the journey into the night and asking, without the vigil of sincerity in a pumpkin patch.
Their lack of revelry was something I took too personally. I was frustrated as well by the children who cast aside their costumes, which lie in heaps in second-hand stores, plaintive for a second life; costumes dreaming of a second chance to delight and frolic and dare the door to door dance. I was frustrated by the children too simple-minded to do more than drape white sheets over their heads and wave their arms to frighten the smaller ones, and intimidate them into handing back the sweet spoils of their daring. I was glad to see the ravens stripping meat from those bones as they trip and fall.
The scarecrow scattered the flocks away into a stormy season, and the fields were left bare after the autumn harvest. Fallow but rotting, they lay empty and wasted in the thin sunlight of the wintertime, and we all held one another close while we shivered under that gourd-headed fool’s gaze. But then the birds flocked back to lurk above me on the power lines, and with a clearer head I started to read them as notes on your own staves, as the tune of the Great Pumpkin’s new year dance.
I have discovered that the heart in this one troubled bird is too small to nourish this much anger. I thought of myself as One is for Sorrow, and a sorrowful raven I made soaring over the sea and lands. I looked at everything. I remembered what I saw, and I gave it voice in the patterns and maps of the ground laid out below. I forgot that ravens first belonged to you, not the hooded grey traveler who borrows our council and bribes us for what we would whisper of truth. Fenrir swallowed the sun, but the coughed it up again, and we are all safe from the latest Ragnarok with birds singing of another in the offing. Of my worst fault, there were brief moments of rage at the fighting when I forgot what it meant that I was a pair.
But here on the threshold of the new year I remember what sacred trust of soul conveyance each night-shrouded bird holds in their talons. Through the year, we gather the lost souls and shepherd them on their way to the other side, down the longest road of all. If we psychopomps are more numerous this year, it is because so many children laid aside their true masks to become grownups, and leave us to soar along new skies with you and the wilder hunt. What solemn, strange pride beats in each corvid breast, to bear such gravid responsibility as the safe passage for another soul. And so I close my eyes for a moment in silent recognition for all that has passed away. It is up to us to move our sacred trust to the next journey.
If I find mercy in your darkly grinning visage, let it be for this: I am grateful. For my partner raven who thinks too much - he reminds me that Two are for Mirth. He flies beside my wingtip, and lands to huddle with me under the leaves in the storms sharing warmth, and for him I thank you endlessly. For the rest of my myriad flock that roves hither and yon, and bickers good-naturedly over the broken pumpkin seeds in the fields, I am likewise endlessly glad. Most of all, I am grateful for the dreams of feathers which you have sent to remind me of why we all have wings, and why we breathe and think and remember.
So here I lie, simultaneously a crow-pecked skeleton leaning against a gourd grinning sightlessly up to the sky and the bird who perches upon that same skull, warm and full of the taste of a good eyeball. I am both, and I am neither, but my eyes are still full of wind and stars, and I am remembering how to dream and dare again.
I remain yours.
