Ghosts of Summer

[dukealien]

I've been in a poetry writing slump... so I have been a little MIA. I tend to be this way with poetry. It's like a rollercoaster. I write frantically, and then nothing for a few months. Anyways... here is a recent piece I would like a little critique on. 

Ghosts of Summer

In the sweltering August heat,
ghosts roam my quiet home,
hobbies long forgotten
in the buzzing electric light.  You just said it was quiet (g).  Maybe "toneless fluorescent light?"

The spirits, empty,
long to remember
the passions that once
hung their hearts before the crowd. Replace "the" (except on this line) with something specific and image-rich - what kind of spirits, what kind of passions?  There's room to paint them here.

And here I sit,
listening to their woeful cries,
as the summer folds into itself,  "this" summer?  And a word not including "-to" - save it for that punchy next line.
to hibernate among the bears.

Yet through weeping whispers,
I understand their burdens—
They are no longer shackled
to all that is burdensome.  Excellent stanza

They are too free for their own good,
endless time like a blanket to suffocate,  to metaphor:  "...time a suffocating blanket?"
not to warm them
in the earthly cold.  This is a dying fall, as it should be.  But could a word not "the" make it emptier, more hanted?

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Not to sound like a broken record (does anyone under 50 understand that reference - a "record" is one item in a data file, isn't it?), but much might be gained by replacing "the" with descriptive words or removing it completely.

But not "the bears!"  Strong, beautiful and grumpy they are.