The Pumpkin Patch

On our way to the pumpkin patch 

Through the Redwood Valley we drove, 

A place I hadn't seen in so long, 

Only in the plantation of dreams. 

It was just like I remember it, 

A string of memories bonded by place: 

The green fields, empty baseball fields, 

Popular wineries, flowery roundabouts, 

Golf courses, country houses for rent, 

Strands of poplars streaming along the slough. 

In my dreams the valley is always bigger, 

The fields seeming eternal, 

The mountains oddly more visible.

There's something exciting 

About picking out pumpkins on a farm 

Instead of at the store, 

When the leaves are changing color, 

The winds pick up and the rains release. 

Towering sunflowers and corn stalks 

Surrounded the patches in a coven of Autumn, 

Monsoons of red, yellow and green everywhere, 

Tendrils of the Earth unfurled from the ground 

Those rotund orbs of orange, whose fates 

Are to be hollowed out by Halloween, 

Carved into icons of death, softly lit 

To resemble the ghost of a damned Irishman. 

Today the wind blows stronger, 

Commencing the mass exodus destined 

By weary leaves leaving their trees 

Like elders who sacrificed their health 

For the longevity of the family. 

 

Let's go back to the valley at night, 

Where the wine flows thinner than blood, 

Where the river moves silent as a spirit, 

Where no graveyard rests under moonlight,  

Only memories exhumed from the brain,  

Corpses of thought wrapped in linen 

To feed the underworld forgotten.