You have no right to haunt me. <br /> <br />I didn’t ask for this, <br />the lingering soul of something <br />that died long before <br />the burial took place. <br />The flowers browned and <br />matted to the earth, before <br />the death knell had sounded. <br /> <br />Or, maybe I did, <br />because I’ve always been strangely <br />awed by ghosts; <br />always searching for them, <br />or speaking of them, <br />with whole-hearted, hot dedication. <br /> <br />They say you see things when <br />you are no longer looking, <br />and that may well be true, <br />because I see you everywhere, <br />though I am looking at other things: <br />on the other side of the bed, <br />or in the thick of lilies in the garden, <br />where the cabbage butterflies play. <br /> <br />I know that I am being touched, <br />without seeing the fingers <br />make their association. <br />This feeling is certain, with <br />no room for other notions. <br />It is a strange mix of burn and calm <br />which leaves me flummoxed, <br />wondering where time is standing, <br />or if it ever was. <br /> <br />The afterglow from lying on the <br />grave of a long-dead loved one, <br />evokes strange comfort, as well as <br />a lingering disquiet. <br /> <br />Regret and acceptance are the feuding sisters, <br />tangling with each other, vying for dominance, <br />blooming together, like barbed roses <br />wrapping slowly round the headstone. <br /> <br />You were dead, <br />and I‘d been freed, <br />yet somehow, I am the one <br />who has stopped breathing.<br /><br />Tara Teeling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hoodoo-in-the-garden/
