Poetry: Ghosts
Yes, it will always be there just out of reach,
Either lurking behind a faraway corner
Or stepping out from behind one you’ve already passed,
And it’s hard to decide if the shape that it takes
Is something you’ve dropped or hope to pick up.
But maybe it’s not altogether important
Which one it is, it doesn’t much matter.
There’s no comfort in knowing, just more room for doubts.
You continue walking neither towards nor away,
But desperately wanting something to touch,
Some proof that somewhere there is something alive
And waiting for you, waiting only for you.
Like the unopened letter you see by the door
Which has a life of its own yet is heaved into your
World even before it’s broken in to and read.
Or like the leaking of laughter in a smoke-filled room
That’s developed by strangers but still always seems
To be finding a way to point out how absurd
Is your posture with its undisciplined back.
And so, seeing suspended this uncertain shape,
Just out of reach yet just within reach,
You move on and follow and learn how to loiter
Convincingly when it stops to look back,
Indifferent, like love that has ceased to be love.
And then you think that if you could only
Place it in terms that were at once positive
And beautiful, perhaps it would not remain blurred.
So you try to find out where it goes when it leaves,
But when you follow it runs away and it hides,
When you run, it follows you two or three steps behind,
Its steps just out of time with your own,
Its breathing that of an empty room.