My life has many ghosts:
In half-a-century
The transitory fruits
Of Passion
Pride
And Power,
Are spectres all
That follow Me.

But walking alone on Halloween,
Approaching that haunting hour,
In in the dark and the frost
Of the local graveyard,
I find only lives:

Some, the sweet or bitter legacy
Of family oral tradition,
Many, my very own blood
Of some earlier age,
Some, friends,
Some, once the burden of duty;
Some, I helped lay here
In the quiet of this earth.

Here, I am anything but alone;
Here, no terror reigns,
Here, only the reflection
Of my own life,
Seen in the lives of others:
An endowment perhaps of age,
And surely the Gift of Home.

10/31/2007

Author's Note: Walking off the candy.

Posted on 11/01/2007
Copyright © 2025 Leonard M Hawkes