When russet leaves begin to fall,
When light retreats and west winds blow,
When shaken coals begin to glow
And play with shadows on the wall,
Sliced apples bubble in a pot,
The wind relays the scent of smoke,
The sticks and bellows blow and poke,
And hearth flames catch a dimming spot.
They say a veil of gossamer
Hangs just beyond the mortal grasp,
As stubborn as a rusted hasp
And constant as the conifer.
They say that in the west wind’s blast,
As sparks are flung and smoke is blown,
As shutters bang and hinges groan
With curtains constantly harassed,
The gossamer is brushed aside—
A wisp, an inch, the slightest crack.
It needs no more to let them back,
And oh, they come with flood-like tide.
A widow, with her aching bones,
Is sleepless at her wooden loom.
A shadow floats just past the room.
“Ah, yes,” she smiles. “The veil is blown.”
She rises from her creaking chair
And moves through solitary night.
She lights a candle, sets it right,
And kneels with pain to say a prayer.
A mother, pale and bleary-eyed,
Slips in and out of troubled sleep.
She dreams her husband lets her keep
The empty cradle by her side.
She wakes to see it standing there,
And in its shell, her eyes perceive
A tiny fist and lacy sleeve
Dissolving into moonlit air.
A maiden wakes with sudden sense
And glances out with hawk-like stare,
And he, whose name she’ll never share,
Is leaning on the dooryard fence.
With stealth, she leaves the warm enclave,
Her bare feet soft on frigid boards.
She dons her cloak and ties its cords
And walks by moonlight to his grave.
If you have walked on such a night,
You know already what she feels.
The fragile thrill the scene reveals
Fades only with the morning light.
And even then, some wisps remain,
Closer to us than to the veil.
Sometimes it seems that every gale
Blows something toward the mortal plain.
When pumpkins swell and legends roam,
And hearths are stained with wax and soot,
Who can account for every foot
That treads the floorboards of their home?
Nina Dinan is a student of history at UCLA. Her poetry is inspired by her love of folklore, balladry, and ghost stories. She has won multiple Gold Keys in poetry from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 