MY FATHER'S GHOSTS - Poem

 

MY FATHER'S GHOSTS
.
(Copyright 2022, by Dave Kiffer)
.
It seemed as if there wasn't a bay,
A stream through the dark woods,
Or a mountain black against the sky
Where there wasn't a ghost,
Or so you gleefully taught me.
.
Every one of those tales meant
To keep me tossing and turning,
Listening for every eerie bump,
Sweating in the coldest night,
Holding my breath after lights out.
.
Some nights I would imagine
The branches rustling the wall
Like bony fingers grasping
As I buried my head deeper
Into the smothering blankets.
.
That the dogs howling in the wind
Were also the calls of the souls
Of the children that were taken
In the darkness by the ghosts
You called the child robbers.
.
Or that the water lapping
Against the boat was
Kushtakahs rising up,
Submerging my head
Under flooding nightmares.
.
You've been a ghost yourself now
Going on half a century.
No sightings, of course,
No unexplained shadows
Or things surreptitiously moved.
.
That would not be your style
You made others work for you.
I once heard you tell Mom
'When I am gone, I'm gone'
And so, you have been.
.
And yet, something remains,
A stamp on all that you touched.
You marked us all in indelible ink,
With the unerasable dread that
Even the hidden ghosts are real.

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