A POSSIBILITY OF GHOSTS

Photo by S. Auberle

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed...

I don't have access to my copy of Whitman, but I know these words are either a title or a line in one of his poems. And the old house appears to be from Whitman's time.

There is a poignancy in this place, of course, a bittersweet reminder of passing time. A sense of history, a possibility of ghosts. And wonder, of course--who lived there? Who built the fine old barn behind the house? I could look it up, but prefer my own made-up characters birthing, loving, dying there. Lives well and truly lived. Not that our lives today aren't equally experienced, it's just that sometimes the boundaries and containment of life in that little house seems more appealing than today's crazy-making pace of life.

In actuality, probably not...

- Mimi