CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
They took the journey they'd talked about,
a Sunday drive on Tuesday.
They took lunch, took pictures,
took pleasure shaking their heads
when either lifted to light
the moth-flutter of
a neighbor's forgotten name,
wondering whatever happened
to her, to him,
the stories they'd fled.
The past looked almost comical and frail,
in need of their help.
But they left it there,
both mother and son surprised
to settle for making it ordinary,
going back at safe speed
to a landscape invented before safety,
maneuvering only along the edges,
tracing circumferences,
the simplest geometry of roads,
only the boundaries of field and shelter
where memory stood waving
as farmers do, whether cars
are local or strange.
a Sunday drive on Tuesday.
They took lunch, took pictures,
took pleasure shaking their heads
when either lifted to light
the moth-flutter of
a neighbor's forgotten name,
wondering whatever happened
to her, to him,
the stories they'd fled.
The past looked almost comical and frail,
in need of their help.
But they left it there,
both mother and son surprised
to settle for making it ordinary,
going back at safe speed
to a landscape invented before safety,
maneuvering only along the edges,
tracing circumferences,
the simplest geometry of roads,
only the boundaries of field and shelter
where memory stood waving
as farmers do, whether cars
are local or strange.