A ghost — I swear, his trace is a phantom breath,
his footprints vanish, swallowed, claimed by death,
or worse, by something woven in the snow,
a dread momentum, whispering, soft and low.
The fading rhythm of his heart — I feel it,
a shallow echo she desires to hide it

Snow treads, threshold poised to fade and dissolve,
to disappear in this — a cruel, white charade.
Swirling, blinding whiteness, now it reigns,
a blizzard of cold memories, like icy chains.
The very air a shroud, a chilling tomb,
engulfing reason, welcoming his gloom.

He is here, she feels his desolate embrace,
a barren branch in winter’s bitter space,
like that skeletal elm, so stark and lone,
where icy winds forever make their moan.

Now what?
Must overcome this dark despair,
keep climbing toward the thin, the frailest air?
To branches at the top, where hope is slight,
too weak, too brittle to sustain her flight,
a fool’s ascent, to grasp at phantom light.

Or, shimmy down to the tree’s low base?
To mesh with emaciated leaves, embrace
the dust of failures, where ambition dies,
where silent sorrow holds its vacant eyes.

Or scatter her faint profile, lost, unknown,
like all the “tawkies” — whispers on the stone
and stare out this same cold window, hour by hour,
trapped in the tempest, stripped of strength and power?
A choice, a torment, gnawing at her soul,
to yield to ruin or to strive to make her whole.

The phantom calls, a truth she must unlock,
against the relentless ticking of the clock.
A sliver of hope from shadows, she must glean,
a secret known, yet utterly unseen.
Swiftly slipping from a silk-encased sleeve,
a slender cellphone, her last strained retrieve.

She calls for help, with secrets held so deep,
a whispered promise she must strive to keep.
She starts to tremble, hushed and low

“Oh, Mom!”

two syllables — like falling snow.
A desperate plea against the storm’s low dread,
for answers hidden by the newly dead.
The blizzard howls, a mournful, spectral sound,
and in its vortex, secrets twist and drown.

Hello Reader,
We had a white Christmas during the pandemic. The vapors from my brandy sniffer let
loose a fond memory from seventh grade. A brave, tiny girl stood alone on the stage and read
“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. Her name was Teresa. She read with such confidence and
precise articulation.
All the while, kids in the audience kept jeering and laughing; for you see, she was a
brave black girl reading before a crowd of racist kids typically found in the schools of the
60s. I remember thinking — I wish I could do that! Not speak in public, I suck at that; but
write such beautiful poetry.
I wish I could write a poem about this brave little girl. But a chalky, white old man can
not even come close to grasping the feelings she had on that stage. So instead, the best I can
do is write a poem and shamelessly try to copy the style of her favorite poet — Edgar Allen
Poe.
The inspiration for this poem was the British mystery I was watching while sipping
brandy. The mystery was watching was solved five episodes later. But I will leave it to you
sleuths to figure out what happened in this poem.
? Was the husband dying or just fallen out of love?
? Was it just a lover’s spat, perhaps the beginning of the end?
? Was he a wife beater? Was she an anxious nag?
? What secrets was she keeping?
? Why call mom for help if her husband walked off into a blizzard to sit down by a
tree and die — Eskimo style?
Thanks for reading,
Baldric the Poet