Three Holidays in One Afternoon

A bloody handprint on a windowpane
Beneath which, blood-scrawled letters spell Beware.
Across the street, a pumpkin with straw hair
Gathers his seedy thoughts like Harvest grain.

Then, like an evening shadow, Halloween
Spreads darkness down the block, and black despair.
The bloody handprint on the windowpane
And blood-scrawled letters crying out Beware

Now seem a portent to the son of Cain
Who walks past where the dumb beasts kneel in prayer
A few doors down and sees the manger where
Hosannas rose, then stone, where, sun or rain,
His blood, His hand, adorn each windowpane.

— Paul Lake

Image by Pixabay. Image cropped.