The year does not die loudly,
It simply stops holding on.
Leaves fall like old names
From the mouth of trees.
The fields go quiet.
The nights grow teeth.
And somewhere beyond that which we can see
The ancient ones draw closer.
Samhain.
The night when the veil grows thin.
When the distance between there and here
Becomes nothing but a breath.
So, I light a candle.
One small flame against a world
That has forgotten how to be gentle.
But I don’t light it to keep the darkness out;
I light it so they can find a way in.
The grandmother whose kind hands I remember.
The friend whose laugh appears in an empty room.
The faces that time has taken,
But memory refuses to surrender.
I speak their names.
Quietly, speaking.
Because the dead do not need shouting.
They need remembering.
Outside, the wind claws through bare branches
And another piece of summer breaks free.
Everything is leaving.
Everything is changing.
And perhaps that is what this night was meant to teach us.
That endings are not failures.
That death is not always disappearance.
That sometimes we have to stand at the threshold
Of the old world, and admit
“ I cannot take everything with me”.
So I choose.
I keep the love.
I keep the lessons.
I keep the stories.
I keep the names.
And the rest, I give to the fire.
Let it burn. Let it become ash.
Let the wind carry away what has finished
It’s work with me,
Because tomorrow the wheel will turn.
The Sun will return.
But tonight belongs to the dark.
Tonight, I stand between worlds,
One foot in everything I have lost,
And one in everything I have yet to become.
And with the candle burning;
With the ancestors listening,
And the old year falling silently around me,
I whisper:-
I remember you
I carry you
I release you
And I am still here.
