“It is required of every man, the ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death”. – Charles Dickens
“Listen, listen”, the boy ghost said, “we are present caricatures of what we once knew, no better time than Christmas, to know the life that once was you”. “From this same stargate a child was born, and in that image all lives were formed”.
Blew a kiss your way in the snow of “73”, you were transparent so hard to see, a foot pointed in reverie, no one saw you but me. Just a sprite upon the bridge, looking southward toward a ridge. The bluffs above you, and down below the muddy San Juan looked like moving brown snow. I thought about you standing there, a Dicken’s character with muffled hair. What were you doing, where was your home? Were you the same ghost who whispered to me when I felt so alone? I saw you again when we drove home, winds swirling, the spirits they roam. Oh, the ides of Noel be, above a river, on Christmas Eve. Faire thee well then, from my way back when, the clock is ticking while darkness moves in. A change to shadow, the book of dark, forever thirteen, a phantom in my heart.
Beyond our house, the wind it blew, from the steeps of twin peaks, the sand it made a witches brew. And in the interest of the dark, the Christmas story had a different start. For instead of Judea from my Father’s lips, I heard a whisper about desert ships. A different story from a different arc, a previous world in its glory before our start. “Listen, listen”, the ghost boy said, I’m a reflection of you before you were dead. “Listen, listen”, to your own heart, the Yuletide of genesis was the beginning before this Christmas start. And I heard him singing inside my head, and it sounded of wonder as I made my way toward bed.
That once in a lifetime on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1973, the ghost on the bridge, came with me home, made my life different from all I had known. Told me stories of how life had been before division of meaning was borne upon men. Told me of stars, that spelled out their names, as they danced in unison, until morning came. Told me of meaning of why we are born, to love in adventure, to love in the storm. And as I traveled so far in my dreams, a boyhood voyager, to give or receive. I passed that bridge by the one where I’d seen, the boy ghost looking, staring at me. He looked so familiar, like someone I knew, no different from me. He waved me on through. He waved me on through.
“Listen, listen”, the boy ghost said, “we are present caricatures of what we once knew, no better time than Christmas, to know the life that once was you”. “From this same stargate a child was born, and in that image all lives were formed”. – 12.20.21 – דניאל