September 22: Pennywise Time, Paul Muldoon, "Cuckoo Corn"

I've spent most of the day inside, in an office without windows.  I didn't see the thunderstorm roll through this afternoon, with sideways rain and a sky dark as a coal miner's lungs.  When I left work, things had improved a little.  It was still raining, but the sky was ashy grey.

Today is the Fall Equinox.  At 4:04 this afternoon, daylight and darkness balanced.  Twelve hours and twelve hours.  From this day, until the Winter Solstice, night will overtake day, second by second.  By All Hallow's Eve, the little ghouls and ghosts will have plenty of storm sewer, Pennywise time.

Tonight, Saint Marty has another Halloweeny poem for your reading pleasure.

Cuckoo Corn

by:  Paul Muldoon

That seed that goes into the ground
After the first cuckoo
Is said to grow short and light
Like the beard of a boy.
Thought Spring was slow this year,
And the seed late, after that Summer
The corn was long and heavy
As the hair of any girl.
They claim she had no business being near a thresher,
This girl whose hair floated as if underwater
In a wind that would have cleaned corn, who was strangled
By the flapping belt.  But she had reason,
I being her lover, she being this man's daughter,
Knowing of cuckoo corn, of seed and season.