Fly Away Home

XII - Ghosts

The empty classrooms still haunt me

Empty desks, stacked chairs, this is all there is to see

The ghosts of children fly past the windows

The smiling faces of teachers hang in the shadows

Where could they be?

The old mulberry trees with which we used to share fruit

Stand motionless, fruitless in their sorrow

For they have no one to share their offerings with

For the children are gone, no longer where they once lived

Names of the children that used to be

Written on the board in beautiful calligraphy

Pools of tears are not so shallow

Tears that the heavens cried in their distress

At seeing the place so very depressed

Frozen in time, the halls wait

Wait for the children to come racing through

Through the old green gate

The gate that now feels so blue

Gate and halls will wait and wait

For year upon year

Until rust and dust send them into deep sleep

That they could not even be awakened from

By a child’s begging weep