Who Still Haunts My Life

Who Still Haunts My Life
© Surazeus
2024 09 01

Soft grass that whispers by the signless road 
contains no wisdom I would need to know, 
yet when I see its green glow in sunlight 
I feel strange timeless ache of wordless hope 
that I might find the person I love most 
who still haunts my life as the faceless ghost. 

Parking my car on margin of the road, 
I stand in knee-high tufts of weeds and shrubs 
that rustle from gusts of quick-passing cars, 
astonished I have nowhere else to go 
now that the person I love most has died, 
who still haunts my life wherever I hide. 

The western tanager with scarlet head, 
and breast gold as hills in afternoon glow, 
explains to me the secret of true love 
is never wanting others to love me, 
so I whisper name of the lonely soul 
who still haunts my life as their fateful role. 

When I speak their name with breath of my heart 
their soul transforms into the butterfly 
that wafts over meadow flowers of faith 
and ignores busy rush of human games 
competing to earn more love than the one 
who still haunts my life in the silent sun. 

Lingering by the road, I laugh to recall 
poster of star dove on library hall 
that says, if you love someone set them free, 
for they will return to live by our side 
if they choose that fate with an eager heart, 
who still haunts my life though we are apart. 

I walk back to my car parked in the grass, 
thinking about how cars are time machines 
because they take us to our future dream 
faster than if we walk on hungry legs, 
yet I will not find my love when I go, 
who still haunts my life as indifferent snow. 

Driving highway that winds through tangled woods, 
hedged around Eden that kept Satan out, 
I grin that world view of my hopeful mind, 
which I constructed from sweet memories, 
disintegrates in sunlight of their eyes 
who still haunts my life in conceptual guise. 

She is no Pandora with guileless smile 
who gives me box of secrets from her heart, 
so I play lyre of Mercury and sing 
spells of compassion Orpheus taught me 
to call from Hell sweet woman I adore 
who still haunts my life in the empty door.