Memoir Poem: Ghost House

The houses that you leave behind

become doubled like ghosts.

Lost memories haunt dreams

in landscapes of place.

Hillsides fences butterfly trees

green river snake glistens

hose water fountain sprouting

rainbow arcs sweetening the air.

Mountains of rose bushes

overflowing sweet softness

Summer sunset blanketing

warmth in gold.

Fireflies sparkle

speak Morse code.

The maple tree

still shines gleaming

sunlight through delicate leaves

under her sheltering branches

on the cobbled slate slabs

semi-smooth raw stone steps cut

into the hill like a hobbit home.

Mind time traveling:

Fast is forwards

Slow is backwards

Pause the camera’s recording to refocus.

Minutes hours seconds

are photographs of time.

Divine mathematics

in nature sublime.

Aging forwards is growing

not stagnant frozen immaturity.

Remembering backwards

reconstructing puzzle pieces of moments

great movements and stories.

Time is a masterpiece of knowing.

We’re the children of culmination

of Past Present Future

all in one recycling juxtapose.

The house of my childhood resides

inside the imprint of wounds.

Memories and elegies remain

as scents stained in the ever wood.

The static of lost youth

abandonment deranges

like Miss Havisham’s flair

and early sorrow rearranges

the brain’s sullen refrains woeful.

Lightning charged outdoor shower

birds chirp in multitudes

of songs in abundant trees.

Log roll down a hill laughing green.

Imagination rests in living clouds.

Our boxer puppy is there too

dancing joy shaking

her bobbed tail.

Running radiant ecstatic

circled laps on the lawn

in breathless freedom

at the dog speed of happiness.

Circumnavigating our home

with her force field of love.

The ghost house of my childhood

is still protected by her true goodness.

Things left behind are still beloved

saved in the hole in my heart.