Pumpkins reign this time of year. Pumpkin spice infuses dense breads, pumpkin syrup sweetens lattes thick with foam, bulbous pumpkin costumes cushion costumed kids, oven roasted pumpkin seeds sprinkled with coarse salt are browned to a satisfying crunch. At the pumpkin patch my son collects them in his wheelbarrow like he’s hoarding for hibernation, rolling the lumpy gourds along the uneven ground, raising the smallest with handled stems above his head triumphantly. He’s working, intent on his task, unaware of the futility; we’ll only need a few of the treasures he amasses.
We’ll carve them, paint them, light them from the inside. Set them out on the front porch steps. They’ll rot from the bottom up, browning and reeking, black mold creeping up the sides like sinuous coils of vines, a ruinous infestation. The children will dress up, pretend to be, gather their eager plastic tubs, pumpkin shaped with garish black triangles for eyes, nose, teeth.
They like the flickering glow as jack-o-lanterns wink from neighbors’ homes. Each unique, each decaying from the moment they are chosen. Plucked from the earth, carved and admired for a fleeting celebration, a macabre exultation, as darkness descends into shorter days and longer nights, as the curtaining chill causes retreat into fireside evenings, woolen socks, cups of steaming tea cupped in chapped hands.
Pumpkins serve a transition: the yellow summer glow into the crimson of the winter season. The jarring contrast tempered by this orange intermediary, tolerated, even embraced, if only for a month or two.