Celebrated on October 31st,
Halloween is the last day of the Celtic Calendar.

It comes from a pagan holiday honoring the dead, referring to All Hallows Eve
dating back 2000 years ago.

Oddly enough,
the Catholic church once honored
saints on this designated day.

There are different viewpoints
on the holiday, but it’s known to be associated
with the Druids
in Ireland, Britain and Northern Europe.

The Feast of Samhain was celebrated annually
on October 31st to honor the dead,
providing a harvest festival
with huge bonfires,
marking the end of a Celtic year
and the beginning of a new one.

On this night the Celts believed the souls
of the dead roamed the streets and villages.
Not all spirits were thought to be friendly
so gifts and treats were left out to pacify
them; the townsfolk believed this might ensure
better crops for the coming year.

This evolved into trick-or-treating.

As a kid, I loved to trick or treat.
Living in condominium-suburbs,
with my older brother and our friends,
we roamed the neighborhoods
with ghoulish costumes while carrying plastic
Jack-O-lanterns having no idea
why we were doing it
or what it was about, loving every minute of it
just the same.

If I would’ve known,
perhaps I would’ve left out a bowl of candy
for my mother who died
when I was ten years old.

A lot of the holiday’s wisdom is unspoken.

Zombies and ghosts and death
and beetles and Autumn
crept its way into the Summer days
and chilled the bones
for the oncoming winter
reminding the soul of cemeteries to come.

My mother’s ghost was there with us
as we walked into houses
glowing from candlelight,
when we repeated Bloody Mary
staring at a bathroom mirror in the dark,
when we stuck our hands into a bowl
of spaghetti that felt like the guts
of a goblin.

Little did we know,
the skulls of the dead
from all the history of the world
were being carried
by us American kids
hundreds of years in the future
while we strolled through
street-lit suburbs
with chocolate on our minds
and Abba Zabba
and Reces Peanut Butter Cups

all in a condominium neighborhood
of Orange County,
California.