All Hallows

my lovingly carved pumpkin

my lovingly scary nephew

All Hallows
by Louise Gluck


Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here 
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.