06-22-2022, 11:05 PM
On the Existence of Ghosts
--after Ezra Pound
If there is such a thing as a ghost, it isn't the
manifestation of a dead person's apparition
or something that appears as of
a nebulous image. But rather it is one of these:
memories of long-forgotten faces
and nightmares conjuring our past in
a time that we hoped we would never again recollect, like the
horrific remembrance attached to a childhood home, or the time we were hopelessly lost in a crowd.
These thoughts are like a rose's petals,
blooming to life, vivid at first, but withering as time moves on.
They've been buried deep within a
profusion of passing years, something reflecting the flashback of the tribulation like the wet
surface of a murky pond. The ghostly trigger is a black
root of an oak planted in the ground, a trunk grasping at the sky with its bough.
--after Ezra Pound
If there is such a thing as a ghost, it isn't the
manifestation of a dead person's apparition
or something that appears as of
a nebulous image. But rather it is one of these:
memories of long-forgotten faces
and nightmares conjuring our past in
a time that we hoped we would never again recollect, like the
horrific remembrance attached to a childhood home, or the time we were hopelessly lost in a crowd.
These thoughts are like a rose's petals,
blooming to life, vivid at first, but withering as time moves on.
They've been buried deep within a
profusion of passing years, something reflecting the flashback of the tribulation like the wet
surface of a murky pond. The ghostly trigger is a black
root of an oak planted in the ground, a trunk grasping at the sky with its bough.