Ornate iron bars that twist and swirl
on windows of a stone Baroque house:
Their billowing lines flow and unfurl
like the linen of a wan lady’s blouse.

Late sun casts her umbra on the stone wall,
a dark bramble of shadowy vines
that cling to the plaster in ways that recall
hung forests of lost memory and time.

Into this dark wood I walk with my mind
to retreat into the past of this place
and see how far the clock I can unwind
for to pass through its pale numbered face.

There faces now greet me, spirits of old
who once walked this very same street.
They look astonished at how I was so bold
as to travel there to warmly them greet.

To be remembered and seen once again
is a gift for which they’ve waited a year.
For as this day fades, the dark windowpanes
between our two worlds turn into a gauzy frontier.

And so the veil of the quick and the dead
turns thinner for just a brief night
while the faces of those who’ve gone on ahead
to the other side shine their dim light.