Old Ghost

In a tiny patch of trees between two houses and a road
I stand alone in silence, in late winter’s quiet cold.
Under branches in the darkness, feet on dampened earth,
A greater forest seems to haunt this sliced and conquered turf.
No beasts stalk here now-- no, rooftops loom instead;
Streetlamp eyes alone gaze down at my unfearing head.

Yet something still remains here-- some quiet from before.
A tinge upon the very air still hints of something more.
The trees cannot remember their ancestral wilder land,
Nor can harmless urban fauna spared by Man’s sculpting hand.

That ghost I sense around me is but reflection from within,
A voice from some more early soul whose trace has been worn thin.
His shroud of fear, so urgent then, is warped to longing now.