It was a day for ghosts.
Fog hanging in the air,
a mist that never turned
to rain. Leaves slick
as ice and the ground
underneath in a surface
thaw making walking
tricky. I saw plenty,
all deer no parents
or grandparents or family
stretching back to my
beginnings. Only deer,
the ones who couldn’t leave
the woods, the weather:
peripheral visions disappeared
in each step, each pause,
each pawing. Each head bob.
I wondered if that was the kind
of ghost I’d be, the one unable
to leave, the one so in love
with here that eternity means
nothing, some promise land
a fragment of slivered eyes
unable to see why no one,
once here, would want to leave
like the deer I saw all day
while I hunted the living deer
of which I saw none.
Only the ghosts that turn
heaven upside down.
-Byron Hoot
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