Haunted

Especially when the October wind

With frosty fingers punishes my hair, 

Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire 

And cast a shadow crab upon the land. 

                                      —Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems 

Until a couple of days ago we’d been having quite a temperate October. The trees were turning amusing colors, and most mornings there were more leaves on the ground, but there’d been no  need for anything more than a light jacket. Then I left book club on Wednesday night–we meet at a restaurant–and it was cold and windy.

“Bring a sweater!” Connie, Choir Director, email, Thursday afternoon

Something was wrong with the heat at St. Pete’s on Thursday. Since the choir rehearses in a room the size of a barn which is a bit chilly on a good day, a sweater would be a good idea. The parking lot was cold, windy, and dark. The only illumination came from the orange fairy lights outlining a sign over the entrance of the “Not Too Spooky Haunted House” for kids that St. Pete’s runs every October. The narrow, steep set of steps descending to a heavy door sure looked spooky to me. I shivered a little as I passed.

That wintry hint in the October breeze was still in my mind this morning, Friday, when I read the opening lines of Thomas’ poem. I’m not far into the Collected Poems yet, and I’m hoping I’ll start to catch on better to Thomas’ style eventually. The autism in my brain has accidentally cemented reading a couple of poems aloud into a morning routine and strongly suggests that I tackle my accumulated poetry collection one book at a time. There have been benefits. I can immerse myself in a single writer’s voice, and also it lessens the guilt I feel when, toting a laundry basket, I pass the bookcase whose contents consist of shrink-wrapped board games and worthy books that I should have read all the way through but haven’t. I’ve checked off Keats and Herrick and moved on to Thomas.

His poems are tougher than I anticipated, adding a frisson of fear to my morning reading. What if I don’t understand this poem? What if I can’t understand this poem? His pieces bring back memories of the star students in the poetry workshops of my past. I did quite a few workshops but never quite got the knack of writing anything that sounded like a real poem— dense, word-drunk, allusive, with subtle points that could only be understood after much reflection and analysis.

One time I came near to achieving something approaching this style through a writing exercise that involved taking a line from a real poet’s poem and manipulating it by using antonyms, changing the word order, etc., and then working from that first line. This technique produced something that sounded like a poem, although I had no idea what it meant. In workshop the teacher liked it, and so did most of the other students, who enthusiastically explained my composition to me. (The best poet in the class didn’t like it—he said he couldn’t make heads or tails of it; he was probably right.)

Thursday evening, most of the choir members wore sweaters. This was handy because after rehearsal we got to tour the haunted house. Five rooms, one ghost, one witch, a trio of singing jack o’ lanterns, an old-fashioned TV in a cabinet, Pirates of the Caribbean, and skeletons galore. We chanted as instructed to urge a ghost to appear. That was the most fun. Repeating short phrases, not thinking about them too hard. I think Dylan Thomas would have enjoyed chanting also. While a child he fell in love with the words of Mother Goose nursery rhymes as “words alone. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance,” he recalled. As an actor, he’d probably have enjoyed playing one of the pirates, or a wizard.

Haunted houses have never been my thing; I usually find them overwhelming and confusing. (Scary movies have never been my thing, either: one horror film can give me a year’s worth of nightmares.) Maybe some of the issue is not being being exposed enough to these situations. The fundie churches of my childhood, generally suspicious of Halloween, didn’t host haunted houses. But surprisingly, I enjoyed the not-too-spooky house, especially the last bit.

In the final room we were given novelty spectacles that made the walls seem covered with floating, twinkling jack o’ lanterns. I loved the nonsense of it. It occurred to me while I was reading today’s selection that requiring that Thomas’s poems make 100% sense might not be the point. So I read without trying to stop and analyze and found my favorite so far. It was like my first time at the ocean, when I stepped into the water and realized the waves would never stop. A little bit frightening, but a bigger bit thrilling.

Here’s how the Thomas ends: 

The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry

Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.

By the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.