Child's Play

The pictures on the staircase rearranged themselves in the night

           or so she thinks.

The carvings in the wooden beams that support the entry to this old house

are mathematical in design and impossible to sand

            or so it seems.

My ears sing and I go to the woods to hear the crow and found a skull

and a rack and remember that which was upturned in the garden

and thrown into the ditch, but they keep coming back, like playful ghosts,

            or so I fear.

First it was her great-grandmother’s portrait

moved from top to bottom. Each night another moved

until the last morning the wall was empty.

            No one sees what she can see.

The dog barks, and the moon turns red, an eye of blood,

the camera flash, a migraine, a socket at the keyhole.

           The dreamwheel in my head.

My family pictures don’t rearrange themselves. I hang them where

I want them and they stay put. If a hook come up empty,

dust coating the wall behind where something hung,

            it was on someone else’s stair.

I retain the brass chalice my father used as an ashtray for his cigars

and saved the butt of one half-smoked.The wrapper crumbles in the bowl
but the blackened tip is soft from his lip 

            or so it seems. 

The boy runs for help with ash in his hair, a rattling in his pockets.

Fire smoldering undetected beneath the surface of the peatlands

broke free in his excavating.

            A tooth in his pocket. 
On the final night of the wolf moon her ancestors were piled against the wall

at the bottom of the stairs.

            I dreamed I was her and saw them there.

This is posted for Brendan's challenge at Earthweal, the new platform for discussion of climate challenges. The ghosts of what was, what might have been and what might yet be. Comments and suggestions are welcomed!