The Serious Moonlight

(Hey, name that lyric!  Prize= my admiration.  Sorry, that's all I got.)

It occurred to me this evening, as I was stirring through the charred remains of the  burn pile with a hose in my left hand, that this is the night before Halloween.  What a perfect night for it.  The streaky clouds were chasing each other across the moon, pushed by a very odd south wind.

The moon is close to full, making that wonderful silver glow on everything.  It's not the same as the light from the lamp in the middle of the barnyard or the big light on the wall of the shop.  It plays tricks on me.  A few times I thought I saw an ember but it was just moonlight reflected on a stalk of wet straw.

Sometimes my imagination plays tricks on me.  But I let it.

I had to get some new drugs from the emergency room doctor to counteract the (perfectly harmless) annoying shooting pains radiating from my eyeballs to my fingertips.  One drug keeps me from crying at the wall all day and disturbs my sleep; the other dulls pain and knocks me on my butt.

I don't even know what house I'm waking up in 98% of the time on a good day.

I feel kinda woozy.

Unlike this guy, I don't look heavenly and sexy when I feel woozy.  How does he do that???

Result: if you trick or treat at my house this year (not this house, the other one) it won't be a particularly short and rather feminine Captain Jack Sparrow opening the door.  Sorry darling.  It never would have worked between us.

Tonight the horses galloped into the corral; the white in the coats glowed in the silver light.  When they were done their grain they both looked out the back door of the barn.  By the time I had the lights out and locked up, they were gone.  I squinted out into the dark pasture but all I could find were two ghostly shapes out there.

I wanted to be the Headless Horseman for Halloween when I was a kid.  I wanted to ride around the country block on my little black pony with a coat pulled up over my head.  I wanted to go to school like that.  With the pony.  I never was allowed to do that.  Not even a discussion.

I love Sleepy Hollow the way Tim Burton did it.  I don't like scary movies but I love this one.  It's creepy and beautiful and not quite earthly.

I probably wouldn't like to meet up with the Headless Horseman while standing there in the bottom of the yard looking for smoking embers.  Way down there in the dark with only the moonlight, digging through the charcoal with the last wisps of smoke escaping from underneath the wet dripping rusted remains, me all alone with two ghostly horses behind me.

Have an imaginative Halloween.