The Season of the
Witch
Most of the country is
hushed out there
As the Moon climbs over
the hill,
The creatures out in the
wild beware
And the air is
breathless, still,
The deer is stood at the
edge of the wood
Afraid to go in too
soon,
With the animals
skittish, out in the yard
A hare stares up at the
Moon.
There’s something amiss
in the air tonight
Both furtive and dark,
unclean,
Shadows are lurking by
old stone walls
In wait for a sign to be
seen,
The men all sit in a
vacant trance
As the women go out by
the ditch,
Wearing their
smoke-black cloaks in the dance
For the Season of the
Witch.
Then like the flutter of
vampire bats
The witches take to
their brooms,
Hang on to their tall
black pointed hats
And fly low over the
tombs,
They head in a swarm up
Gallows Hill
Fulfilling some ancient
rite,
While watchful eyes at
the window-sill
Will get little sleep
this night.
For Alison, Lindy,
Carmen and Deb
Are watching their
mothers leave,
Tucked into bed as their
mothers’ fled
The girls creep out to
deceive,
Pulling the curtains
aside they see
The flight go over the
hill,
And hear the cackling
sounds of glee,
Then the air is cold and
still.
Then Lindy calls to the
other three
Through the window out
to the farm:
‘Let’s climb up there,
where we all can see
What they’re doing from
high in the barn!’
So they dress themselves
in their winter cloaks
And they put on their
witches hats
That the mothers had
made for Halloween,
Had decorated with bats.
They climbed up over the
stacked up hay
To the roof of the
timbered barn,
And they peered from the
moonlit bullock dray
To the trees by the
hilltop farm,
But the witches danced
in a grove of trees
Quite hidden from
anyone’s sight,
‘Let’s take our brooms,’
said Alison Keys
‘And fly while the Moon
is bright!’
‘Let’s fly while the
Moon is bright,’ she said,
So they stood at the
edge of the hay,
Looked down to the old
paved cattle yard
And the tractor, over
the way.
‘We saw them fly, we can
do it too,
We’re witches tonight,
we’ve seen!
Tonight is the magical
mystery night
For witches - it’s
Halloween!’
They mounted their
broomsticks, held their breath
Then leapt each one with
a scream,
They dropped like stones
to the cattle yard
On the night of
Halloween,
They were found impaled
on the thresher blades
That was parked beside
the ditch,
And the screams could be
heard a mile away
In the Season of the
Witch!
© David Lewis Paget
David Lewis Paget is
an Australian Poet, born in the UK but migrated to Australia in 1958. Writing
since 1966, predominantly introspective poetry until 2005, then launched into
Narrative and Gothic verse. Paget taught English to college students at the
Wenzhou Medical College in 2005-6, from which came his Chinese collection. He
lives in a Cornish cottage on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, retired,
but still writing and publishing poetry. A prolific writer whose work has been
called addictive by many readers.
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