We Watch and Wait, Until It Is Time                                          by Dallas Kirk Gantt

To Return   (to our poets who are no longer around)

I am one of the ghosts that gather to once again hear the word.

but let me tell you we are not held, we are free.

We stay around because we're endeared to words walking,

and when ideas come alive.

We are betwixt and between, somehow we survived.

I'm not a sheet, a smoky wraith, or some perching gargoyle,

Some moaning bump in the night, searching.

I'm not a cold thing you'll frighteningly meet, agog and ashiver,

a specter, Gaunt and haunting.

I'm here, but I'm not what you think.

If you want to see me, let me be what I once was.

Picture me in your mind.

I'm here not to scare, I just want the sharing of words

that are innermost,  uppermost, outermost,

whatever you want is good enough.

It's tough being this being, whatever you call us...

we who once had the divine spark, the sacred flame.

It never really goes... out, it changes and gets rearranged.

I can let go at any time, I just BLINK and I'm gone

to what's next.  In love with the Muse,

I choose to still be here.

I like to watch you all

be you, that's all.

The others come here too.  The precious and few

that have walked through the same door you do,

they've read here before, and now are no more

as you knew them.

They're still out here, doing what we do,

we still have heart, but not the kind

still capable of bleeding.  I can see you

but you can't see me, and nothing I can do

can ever cross over to reach you.

I float without form, I float, I'm free.

Nothing I can do will allow you to perceive me.

I live solely in the realm of memory.

I'm at liberty to go wherever I want

but why would I want to go where I've never been?

I'm not a tourist, I can't enjoy room service

or exotic eats, or walk hand in hand

with my beloved in mystical places!

How long can I watch my loved ones sleep,

How long can I stare at my children's faces?

I'm not some manifestation of my own imagination.

I'm not a shade, skulking in shadows like a lurking phenomenon.

I was...I am...I will be...

I'm just not what you can hear, smell, feel, or see.

But just remember... you give life to me.

I'm out here tightrope walking on the edge of infinity.

Please don't blame me if I look back.

It's like a crack that is closing.

And then I'm off into forever.

When are you willing to relinquish the silver thread,

the tie that binds you to the golden glow

of all you know, and leave

without grieving?