Poem completed today – Haunting

A poem I just completed today. I love the process of revision, the feeling you get when you fine tune the sounds, punctuation, the spacings. I especially find it amazing when you edit out a big chunk of what you thought was so precious and realize it was actually holding the poem back. This poem went through many revisions. It is quite hard to not find yourself in cliche when writing about the supernatural. Not quite in time for Halloween but you know, you can’t push the river…

Haunting

Under the strange glow
Of the winter sky
At night, it haunts me,
Gray shadow, the silence.
And high above I feel
It’s weight bear down
Upon my sleeping eyes
Tearing the sleep into pieces.
I sleep the dream to awake
And know that you are here

In the stillness of that time
When thought forgets
Limits. A simple glimpse
To the corner of my room,
In the corner of my eye
An ocean and a sigh
Passing through one moment
Of vague eternity.

You are an angel, a friend
Long past, the thin, fragile
Woman who died here,
Who I only met once.
You are buried here,
Under a strong cedar
That no longer stands.
Your grave has been
Covered by concrete
And memory has pulled you
Back to this place. Your
Memory. My memories.

By aim or by chance,
Your resolve pushes me
Out of my sleep, freezes me
To stare, waiting for you
To tell me anything but
There is no language.

If I were to find
Just the right tone
Of a certain bell
And ring it,
Or speak some word
By chance, could you
Then find your way
Through the restless air,
Opaque layers of what
I do not understand –
Would I hear who
Or what or why?

©2012 Sandra E. Walton