Sweet Samhain

The full, pale moon shone like white fire betwixt a purple twilight and dreary dawn that night we danced our last waltz to the autumn. Samhain was gone now, spirited away by the winter. Martinmas was here, and thence came the snow. Our fields were now barren, and our harvests now gone as I sat nigh that dark fire. I was cold and alone. The crows called thrice and thrice I denied as that devourer of ice feasted the carrion of Samhain. They fluttered away, marking the end of the season, and I tried to give chase. I couldn’t, reader… I couldn’t find a reason.

Upon the fall of the gray morning, skeletons of the proud trees now stood. Their orange and gold was missing. Bereft it was of our autumn; enshrouded in a gray winter hood. I found myself in the after-dream of an autumn drunkenness, hungover and rigid as the frigid winter air pervaded my seasonal lover. Her name was Samhain, and her season was autumn, and she was to me as opium was to the addict. Therein the remnants of such intoxication, I was overcome with gloom, for in that cold winter I felt trepidation. Something was coming, and though I didn’t know what it was, the desolate winter land spoke to me with insufferable cunning. I tried to coerce my imagination to aught that suggests something good, but I could not. For in that barren after-dream, there was naught but winter’s rot. I rocked myself there betwixt the memory of my former lover and the bones of the earth, now ashen gray like the decay of Samhain’s hearth.

The gray dawn I watched rise in the east had sickened my soul and I hung my head low as I held myself cheap. For Martinmas was here, and autumn was not. But I feast to Saint Martin, my dear Saint Martin, whence before I remembered that fifth of November. Before that, I tumbled beneath the sheets with Samhain, but she was gone and so was her scent. A decayed earth now lingered behind in her quarters, giving rise to my captor whose name was Winter. I was ousted from autumn and I was Faust to the snow. In effort to remember, I had sold my soul. In so doing I had wrought naught but sickness. It was a yearning of thought of Samhain; my mistress. But first, I will recall that fifth of November, wherein a forgotten holiday fell in the hinterland of autumn.

Guy Fawkes he was called, the man that would fail. Found in Westminster Palace he was - nigh the gunpowder barrels.

You ask if I remember the fifth of November.

I do not. I cannot, for November is gone along with the plot.

Martinmas is here, and that plot is long gone, betwixt the autumn and winter it now lingers in history. But we will remember it again, whence comes our November, until then I say: Hail Sinterclaus and the winter!

We dine on dear Thursday, and we dine to give thanks. We thank our fathers, and our mothers. We thank our forbearers of the past, whence in the waters of New England they came upon shore. They broke bread with our natives and placed banners on land, wherein this great America now stands.

You ask if I remember that fifth of November.

I say, I do not; I don’t remember November.

Scorpius falls in the heavens and gives rise to the hunter. Great Sagittarius now rides, and draws his bowstring, shooting the arrow of Martinmas and thus winter begins. The nights are now dark, and the days now cold. The moon rises early, and the sun, my sweet sun is swallowed in this hollow winter.

Robert Frost has never been wrong, for nothing gold can stay. Thus to practice and thus to follow the fall of the leaves, Martinmas has come, and the autumn is gone.

You may ask where our dear November has gone, and I say: The winter comes, and it hungers for fall. We celebrated and danced during our Samhain, but that intoxication is gone. We made the descent from revelry and when we landed, we landed in snow. We landed in ice, and we crashed into Gideon’s fleece, but that fleece was not ripe with the dew of heaven. No. It was frozen. I slighted my lover. I slighted her as Sir John Graeme did to Barbara Allan. Therein that Martinmas time, she had her revenge. The sweet revenge on a man who was dying. She left him there, as Samhain has left me. Drunk in my lust for autumn's embrace, I forgot my November - I left it behind in my dreams. A hook in my mouth now pulls me toward winter waters, wherein there can be no promiscuity with autumn's lovers.

Martinmas is here my dear, sweet reader. I tell you this now, for the Starks are not wrong. Winter is coming, and with it comes snow. But first we feast!

Stoke your fires and hold your children close. Give thanks for your family, and give thanks for your life, for when winter is upon us, we will have nothing else. Until then we can try to remember November, but that month is gone and now comes Sinterclaus.

I will hang my head low and lament of November and I will hold myself cheap as I have forgotten its splendor. Dear reader… this year is almost over. Do not forget that which I have. Do not lament for the month of November.

I leave you now as I turn up my collar, I go into the ice and the snow holding naught but her boon. My sweet Samhain will see me again, but nigh a year from this night. Will then I elect to reject my regret of lament? I shall try, dear reader. Will then I forego the foreboding afore I stumble into winter's abode? I shall try, dear reader. My god, I shall try.