Hauntings

I like to believe
the little places in my heart,
that haunt my mind and memories,
reciprocate a special part
of me in some strange way.

The marsh-edge oak
with leaning bole and rhino skin;
the birches bursting concrete slabs
like elven mischief breaking in
where industry once lay.

The gravel spit;
the forest river where we swing,
the jetty on the muddy creek,
the foreshore where the salt waves bring
black shark's teeth from the clay.

The maze of gorse
where horses hide from summer glare,
the downland where the skylarks thread
their song like stitches in the air
the pond where children play

I carry all
these landscapes of my heart and mind
as phantoms in my memories
that whisper in my barren times
"we're here for you always."

And may it be
in distant years when passers-by
are seeking solace, needing space
they sense a kindly ghost that sighs
"I also loved this place".

(c) A Mc N