Ghost

When dreams fall from a clear sky,
We cannot decide what form they take
Governed by the spinning, tilted sphere
That beats in each chest
The undulating massage of sprinkled mist
Can just as true be the gale-driven torrent;
Whatever the form,
Our arms,
The ones we train in reverie to be strong,
We choose to open wide,
To accept that fate we cannot see,
Or to tuck them shut
Closed to all those meant to be embraced

Though we thought it finished,
With rain ceased,
A specter soon appears,
One we ourselves conjure as we taste the memory
Of what our arms beheld that all-important day

When we look below,
We summon the old familiar ghost,
That which springs from the now-watered earth,
From the soil of a mind tilled in guilt
The blooming poltergeist of shadowed past
Haunting, ever haunting,
Till we choose to stop the rain
With a thought, nay, a faith,
That was trained by—
No, trained on—us

When we look above,
From there, where the rain began,
Comes the spirit,
The divine-appointed friend,
Strongest from its source,
Who smooths the tilled earth
And softens it to soften us
We cannot then but fall to our knees
Not to till again
But to embrace
With weakened arms the crop of that faith
That once sat beneath mountains
Now moved

We cannot choose the rain
But we alone decide in time
Which version of ourselves we grow
A choice made by where we find our ghost.