Ancestral Spirits

To his contemporaries he was
a poet called Publius Ovidius,
a name that to us may sound
most foreign and mysterious.

It was no mystery to our literati
who had studied Latin and did
know that the man in question
was none other than Ovid.

He wrote of a Roman festival,
similar to today's Halloween.
with restless souls propitiated
by offerings of black beans. 

We can detect the similarity
to the trick-or-treat tradition
but the dates of both events
are a different proposition.

Whereas the end of October
is Halloween's assigned day,
the Roman Lumerallia feast
went on in the month of May.

Apart from that, the rationale
was the same then and now;
the spectres of the deceased 
had to be pacified somehow,

through customary oblations
or by being warded off.
These are the methods used
although cynics might scoff.

Some people take it seriously,
others say it's make-believe.
Children have fun and carve
pumpkins for All Hallow's Eve.

 
© Luigi Pagano 2021