<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p class="epigraph" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-left: 25px; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Samhain</span></p><p class="epigraph" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-left: 25px; "><em style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">(The Celtic Halloween)</em></p><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">In the season leaves should love,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">since it gives them leave to move</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">through the wind, towards the ground</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">they were watching while they hung,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">legend says there is a seam</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">stitching darkness like a name.</span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Now when dying grasses veil</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">earth from the sky in one last pale</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">wave, as autumn dies to bring</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">winter back, and then the spring,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">we who die ourselves can peel</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">back another kind of veil</span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">that hangs among us like thick smoke.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Tonight at last I feel it shake.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">I feel the nights stretching away</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">thousands long behind the days</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">till they reach the darkness where</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">all of me is ancestor.</span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">I move my hand and feel a touch</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">move with me, and when I brush</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">my own mind across another,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">I am with my mother's mother.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">Sure as footsteps in my waiting</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">self, I find her, and she brings</span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">arms that carry answers for me,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">intimate, a waiting bounty.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">"Carry me." She leaves this trail</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">through a shudder of the veil,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">and leaves, like amber where she stays,</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); ">a gift for her perpetual gaze.</span></div><div style="text-indent: 0px; padding-left: 1em; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Annie Finch<br></span><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); "><br></span></div></body></html>