When black cats prawl and pumpkins gleam, may luck be yours on Halloween....

 My boy Bertie:

In the great silence of my favorite month,

October (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,

A clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),

I celebrated the standstill of time.

The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:

At the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.

But I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.

Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.

It was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.

A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,

And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living."

-   Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow's Eve

    Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan