Spirited Halloween Echoes (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: Every year around this time, Halloween stores pop up all over the place. Many of them, I’ve noticed, seem to occupy businesses that recently closed and are due to have new owners take them over the same space shortly. Especially for Spirit Halloween stores. It just struck me as interesting.]

It seeks out emptied buildings

   in which the echoes of businesses

     often long-standing             but now departed

                        still remain

Like a lonely firefly

      searching for kindred spirits

              whom               once found

           get stoked full of vigor

                as they participate in a tribute

                      to all things altered over time

                                or that await

                                         hidden in the shadows

Mortal visitors come

        to marvel at decorations

                wide-ranging as spiderwebs

                                             bubbling cauldrons

                                     and rubbery bats

           activate animatronics

                frightful as howling wolves

                                    cackling clowns

                            and jumping spiders

  or discover adornments

               appealing as skeleton bones

                                      masquerade masks

                           and vampire capes

Past laughter

                          mixes with present delights—

                all to serve fleeting guests

      between one season

                             and the next

                    until the spooky festivities

                            allow the remnants of all the memories

                                    formed within those walls

                                           to slip away

                                                     alongside the Harvest Moon

                        …to make way for another year

                                     of fresh starts

                                               until October

                                                       once again

                                                            approaches

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