folds

what I'm listening to - come into my arms by november ultra


when we moved into our house
which is likely 150 years old
but no one knows for sure,
I felt there were ghosts there
not spirits, not really
but folds in time 
time repeating itself
and I sensed the echo of it, the composite

time is a construct, isn't it?
just a word for an idea to help us understand
even though we can't begin to fathom the true length of it
so maybe it is not linear at all.

in the emptiness before we filled
the old house with our things
I walked around barefoot on the hardwood floors.
they creaked and groaned 
as I stepped where footsteps have gone before
the echoing rooms seemed so cavernous
but despite how hollow, they were not lifeless.

I imagined the pitter-patter of other children before my own
I wondered if babies had been born here
or in which rooms someone had breathed their last
or if anyone had ever felt very alone at night 
under candlelit shadows.
something about loneliness always tugs at me.

perhaps what I feel are memories no longer remembered
they float around like ghosts in these spaces
for where do they go when there is no one left to share the stories?
in a way perhaps I feel am doing them a service
by thinking of them as a way of remembering
just by acknowledging that the time that passed by before
was once the compelling and necessary present.