dVerse Poets – Open Link Night
Image: thephoblographer.com
“Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them.” Sue Grafton
A Way Home
The room was so still so late,
nothing and no one
a stirring not,
though midst my typing
a shadow passing
persisting time and again
through the snores of the house,
a presence behind me
not malevolent at all,
simply lost and locked,
needing to find a way home,
a letting go,
a moving on,
saying farewell to what was
and embracing the door
of something else,
for my part
I offered the way
in words of love,
the best map there could be.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
parallax 
I love that quote you gave at the start of the poem, and the piece is a wonderful follow on of that idea.
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Many thanks Carol.
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What a lovely read from beginning to end. Bravo
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Thank you so much Beverly.
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You got that exactly right, bro
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Many thanks Ana
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🙋
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Thanks Ana.
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I like the description of that presence trying to find a way home.
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Yes, I think it’s pertinent to physical as well as other worldly beings. Thank you Frank
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Very well written Paul!
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Many thanks for that Diane
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Excellent poem, Paul.
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Thank you for those encouraging words.
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Love as a map–beautiful!
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Thank you for that.
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I particularly like the movement of this poem to the final three lines.
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Thank you so much for sharing that Liz.
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You’re welcome!
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The thought of ghosts being dependent un us not letting them go is actually quite sad… we should let them travel along instead of being stuck… reminds me a bit of Limbo in Dante…. imagine we might be living in Limbo.
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Yes, I often wondered that, now I feel some spirits get stuck, don’t know it’s okay to go. My mother mused once that perhaps we keep them, we can’t let go.
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
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Many thanks Charles
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Lovely words, Paul, and they resonate with me having lived in a house which had a presence. The former housekeeper, I always thought. Very benign, comforting even. I gave her a fictional way home in my first novel, but we’d moved by the time I’d finished it. I wonder whether she took it?
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I must track that down, many thanks Chris.
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If you are interested, Paul, the novel was my first: ‘The Silver Locket’ which I published under the pen name, Holly Atkins, back in 2012. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007QVBFHI
I’ve just updated the text to remove the few typos I’d missed and which had been bothering some readers.
I’ll be running a special offer on the book for a week in February; look out for it on Twitter!
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Thank you for the link – 🙂
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The last three lines, very moving…
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Thank you for that Amy.
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Many thanks for doing that 🙂
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