A Haunting

Everywhere has them, an old house,

empty and decayed, set back, alone

on a dark street, unlit, nor candle burning,

or abandoned among other homes, nicer homes,

in a neighborhood of children playing,

their laughter loud and raucous ceasing

as they pass on their way to school,

ceasing to resume again on the other side,

or crossing over to avoid it, its emptiness,

its darkness, that eerie feeling of an old house,

dark and empty, its porch sagging

under heavy footfall of ages past and rot,

years of moisture unstopped, unchecked, seeping,

and a roof to match, all tilted in, ready to topple,

patched or bare, shingles gone or flapping, lifted up,

up lifted, but the glass remains, intact

mostly, a pane or two broken, perhaps,

or gone, though the windows are closed up tight,

stuck fast, or boarded, and at night, looking out,

the spirits watch us from within, peeking

from the spirit world that holds them there,

keeps them in, silent and staring out,

obscured by shadows, a shadow world

we cannot enter, cannot know nor comprehend

except in our imaginations, our fears let loose,

fear of an old place, closed up, boarded shut,

inviting our imaginations in, even as it keeps us out,

out of the darkness where spirits watch,
specters with a past like ours, watching

and remembering, longing, perhaps, to leave,

wondering if they could, could step across

the broken sill and down the stairs,

crumbling steps long unused, unused to human feet,

leave and join us here passing by, walking

where we will, where we can, avoiding them,

those ethereal concoctions of imagination and fear,

imagination and fear giving them life, a shadow life,

a spirit world within ourselves,

staring out, even, wondering, if we could,

would we step across the broken sill

and down the stairs, crumbling steps

into our own lives, dark and empty,

scared and alone.