on top of the hill
a sea of pumpkins
casts a shadow
on our ground.
winter approaches
and the sun stops
burning bright,
leaves end up
on grass and gravel tiles.
fall leaves
and we go down
with her.
The pumpkin sits in the field, round and waiting like the red sun settling down for the night, a roll of brightness that will stay up a little later, with carved grimaces and a glowing grin, to watch the children, to shine on the feet of doctors and policemen, firefighters and heroes, princesses and monsters. Someone has to watch the children, someone who has the life emptied out of them to be baked and crunched between loose teeth, and still has the patience to keep watch. Nobody should take the journey into themselves and their community alone.
The pumpkin’s growth was amazing. She watched it every day. Her parents told her to cut it so they could eat it, but she said she wanted it to get bigger and bigger. Until one day, she went out to check it, and it had exploded under its own weight. She felt she had lost her child; her mother said, “What a shame. We could have made a nice meal of it.”
the pumpkin sat alone in a field, surrounded by vines. his friends were with him once, long ago. other pumpkins, stretching through the fields, bright and vibrant and alive. picked off one by one, until he was the only one left. no one wanted him. no one cared for the deformed.
on top of the hill
a sea of pumpkins
casts a shadow
on our ground.
winter approaches
and the sun stops
burning bright,
leaves end up
on grass and gravel tiles.
fall leaves
and we go down
with her.
The pumpkin sits in the field, round and waiting like the red sun settling down for the night, a roll of brightness that will stay up a little later, with carved grimaces and a glowing grin, to watch the children, to shine on the feet of doctors and policemen, firefighters and heroes, princesses and monsters. Someone has to watch the children, someone who has the life emptied out of them to be baked and crunched between loose teeth, and still has the patience to keep watch. Nobody should take the journey into themselves and their community alone.
The pumpkin’s growth was amazing. She watched it every day. Her parents told her to cut it so they could eat it, but she said she wanted it to get bigger and bigger. Until one day, she went out to check it, and it had exploded under its own weight. She felt she had lost her child; her mother said, “What a shame. We could have made a nice meal of it.”
the pumpkin sat alone in a field, surrounded by vines. his friends were with him once, long ago. other pumpkins, stretching through the fields, bright and vibrant and alive. picked off one by one, until he was the only one left. no one wanted him. no one cared for the deformed.