Ghosts III January 11, 2004

The dark of night flows in like water,

fills the room, imprisons me,

a creature in its burrow.

Eyes wide-open turn inwards

to a world alive with ghosts

that break unbidden

through the fragile diaphragm

separating out from in.

---

Phantoms of the past

exempt from time and space

come one by one

and then are gone.

---

Some will live as long as I

or someone else

remembers them.

---

Some inhabit still that outer world

but are no longer as I see them now.

---

Familiar, nameless faces. Voices.

---

Words said, unsaid.

---

The fleeting passage of a kiss, a tear,

a time when they and I were young.

---

The diaphragm once rent

cannot be closed.

---

Their shadows are the shapes

of that which was,

of that which might have been,

conditioned by a past remoter still,

dancing to the leitmotif

of a search for love –

both given and received.

---

Eventually a fitful sleep

before the outer world creeps in.

Birds exulting in another day

Wind caressing leaves

mountains, my mountains, over there

across my valley. Beckoning my inner self

to join in thought with you.