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Ghosts and Dreams~ By Susan Dale

3/10/2015

4 Comments

 
In the gloomy gray 
of some autumn day
The lone whistle of a train 
carries down the tracks
the end of a season, sunny and sure
And in the silence 
Of one season burying another
Comes a pathos so bittersweet 
We hear it, as a plea
Hear it in the treetops back of the woods
a presence slowly walking 
no hurry - last trip
down a bare dirt road

We thought we heard rustling
within the crops that stretch across the Midwest
But the fields are harvested long now
Left behind, stubbles and sticks
But sad to leave

Carried with it a knapsack filled
with ghosts and dreams.

Barely a flicker of light remained
When once the bright compass of its being
Filled sun-ups with expectancy
And sundown 
with gaudy ribbons across the skies

Waved goodbye when it walked across Washington State
And felt fires at its back

Across California 
Aflame too 
Lands in between
Sweltering, smoking, 
Gasping with sprays
Bees dying 

A last odyssey across the earth
Where glaciers are melting
Final journey through 
The holy lands of Mohammed and Allah
Car bombs exploded
Retaliation reined from the skies

Across Africa, 
dancing the famine, 
drought and genocide
Isaac washing on shore in Louisiana
Washing away the shore

Walked to keep walking
towards the sea 
While remembering when first it came ashore

In a rhapsody of fire and comets
Planets shooting through the skies 
And stars like diamonds
Splintering the universe. 

Waters warmer now
And churning with hurricanes,
Typhoons naked 
Spinning a requiem 
Out to sea

Riding the high tides of eternity, 
Swimming out
Leaving behind a lost, vengeful earth 
And skies forked with fires

A final farewell then
Before down 
to under the waters 
From whence it came 
And going with it
The knapsack filled with ghosts and dreams.



Author Bio:
Susan’s poems and fiction are on Hurricane Press, Ken *Again, Penman Review, Inner Art Journal, Feathered Flounder, Garbanzo, and Linden Avenue. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan. She has two published online chapbooks: Spaces Among Spaces bylanguageandculture.org and Bending the Spaces of Time by Barometric Pressure.     
4 Comments
Beth
3/10/2015 06:51:19 am

The author illustrates with her words the problems we are facing today leaving a feeling of epoch failure of loss to look after one another while taking care of Earth

Reply
Carol Louise Moon
3/10/2015 04:09:21 pm

Yes I agree with Beth, and also to say that I love the phrase
"the knapsack filled with ghosts and dreams" and how it is
repeated in this powerful poem. It makes a good ending.

Reply
Susan Dale
3/10/2015 09:38:27 pm

thank-you both, Beth and Carol, for your kind comments, Susan Dale

Reply
martha
3/11/2015 02:28:10 am

Susan, a genius, summarizes the condition of our world as we have affected it in an amazing poetic way.

Reply



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