CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
Walking farther there, I am glad we
age slowly, discovering now in memory
similar frontiers of a physical world, visiting
as though for the first time
ruins of a once great city, yet novel
in the crumbling light. We trip
and stumble, unaware, youthful in the obscurity
of shadow, a kind of spring
in itself. Itself, where I touch places, gone, often
confused to find a new home
not torn and built of green, but of a crumbling
orange, and there, there, as though walking
through fire, taking pleasure in the fleeting
walls and lingering agoras, I glimpse
ghost bodies and caress the flesh
boats of their past as I walk toward
what could be mountains or oceans, till finally
I am swimming through the lit window of a name.
age slowly, discovering now in memory
similar frontiers of a physical world, visiting
as though for the first time
ruins of a once great city, yet novel
in the crumbling light. We trip
and stumble, unaware, youthful in the obscurity
of shadow, a kind of spring
in itself. Itself, where I touch places, gone, often
confused to find a new home
not torn and built of green, but of a crumbling
orange, and there, there, as though walking
through fire, taking pleasure in the fleeting
walls and lingering agoras, I glimpse
ghost bodies and caress the flesh
boats of their past as I walk toward
what could be mountains or oceans, till finally
I am swimming through the lit window of a name.