Growing up, Halloween was my favorite holiday. Sure, you’d get presents on Christmas, and on your birthday. Come on, admit it. As a kid your birthday was a national holiday (as far as you were concerned). But Halloween was something different. Christmas, Easter, birthdays, they were all about giving and receiving gifts (candy, presents, whatever). But when everything else is about presents and candy and feasting and love and family, Halloween was about the spooky, scary costumes and horrifying Jack-o-Lanterns.
Going to the pumpkin patch was one of my favorite parts of halloween. But, lets be honest, it was full of rejection. I would usually pick over dozens of pumpkins before I found just the right one. That leaves a lot of unwanted pumpkins out there. Imagine if one of them got sick of it. That’s what I did with “Pumpkin Gone Hunting”.
Happy Halloween!
Pumpkin Gone Hunting
In the patch
Find the right one
This one’s too short and round
This one falls over
A big dent in this one
Worms have already gotten here
But this one looks good,
Maybe that’s it, I’ll come back
This one is skinny
That one is tall
This one has pock marks
That one’s too small
Bumps and warts
What about this one
Wait, didn’t we see this one over there?
I swear, we just saw this one
Over there.
Huh, it might be a good one
We’ll come back to it.
Wait, look at that one
It’s big and round
And sits steadily
That will make
A nice jack-o-lantern
Lets get this one…
uh…
That’s the pumpkin, I swear,
That we saw over there
And again, back then
And twice else somewhere!
And yet here it is
Now the other’s not here?
How does a pumpkin
Just disappear?
I like choosing pumpkins
But the ones I want I don’t see
I just find this one
Like it’s following me
I guess I’ll take it
Since I can’t tell
If leaving it here
Will go over well
Heading back to the car
The way we came
All those good pumpkins
just don’t look the same
Some are now missing
And some have been gashed
But the ones I really liked
Are totally smashed
I’m a bit scared now
But what does one do
If, when out on the patch
A pumpkin picks you.
I’ll put it on the porch
But I’ll tell you something:
Don’t turn your back
On a pumpkin gone hunting!
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