Pumpkin season

I’m four years old and it’s pumpkin season again. 

I’m holding tightly to my best friend’s mittened hand 

and feeling the wind whipping at my face, 

turning the tip of my nose pink, 

watering my eyes so that I’m squinting. 

We are jumping up and down to keep warm, 

then bundled together on a tractor filled with squares of hay, 

squealing at every bump that sends us bonking into one another, leaning against the old wooden sides, 

watching layer upon layer of trees as they roll by, brown leaves fluttering from the sky and landing by our feet, 

laughter, yelling above the roar of the wheels, 

whispering as the tractor comes to a clambering halt, “I don’t want it to be over,” 

seeing the perfect pumpkin and lifting it up in delight, imagining already a carved face, 

placing it carefully on my doorstep 

and talking my father's head off about princesses and butterflies and black cats.