Ghost
(dedicated to memories lost)


you are but a ghost, your brick and board,
shingle and nail, century-old existence only
a memory to those who once called you home.

gone are floors carpeted with time and
footsteps, walls lined with snapshots
and fingerprints, crayon smiles, penciled

years, gone are doors keeping secrets
and rooms painted and papered with
whispers, and windows smudged, dulled by

dust of ordinary, filtering the dreams
of generations, and gone, too, are lilies
that bloomed in honor of spring and a tree

which could not decide if it was a leaf-keeper
or a bohemian content in its nakedness.
bare ground is all that remains to bookmark

your memory, a brief shadow in time, years
spent in gentle keep, and I do mourn your passing.
yes, you are a ghost to me now but I believe

somewhere a splintered board remembers you as I do
or a lily, born in yesterday, blooms to mark spring,
or a whisper escapes drifting across a Louisiana sky

...just another ghost living in the shadow of your memory.