Inspired after driving home last night from work past a factor that had closed down - the snow on the break benches by the road had never been distrubed.

There's a haunting in a silence
where no silence ought to be.
How eerie to view the darkness
when the world's gone cold and empty.

No life is seen spent waning
in Life's continuous, tumbling sands.
The winds blow cold and brittle
in ghostly, melodic bands.

An empty park bench spent in silence.
No footprints linger in nearby snow.
The most ghosts exist in loneliness
for there's no light for Life to show.

Undisturbed, snowy playgrounds
yawn of missing souls and laughs.
How sad to see not a single snowman
nor snow angels blotting paths.

Such haunted ground, no animals pass.
The snow remains virgin and pure.
There's a haunting lingering in silence
and yet it's such a tempting lure

to tread into that great abyss
and call out to those now lost.
Would we hear those faint voices
of those now buried beneath the frost?

The world is drenched in snow tonight.
City walkways are shoveled clean.
But there is something not quite right
when nature reveals where life's not been.

©February 10, 2007 Lori S. Maynard
6:57-7:04 p.m. 7 minute free write