When

When I was young, I saw ghosts.  Why?
For all was well.  I walked through sun.

My dead are many, but they are not ghosts.
The ghosts are those I knew when young.

Better to walk, and never meet a ghost.
But those who smile, who turn through sun,

order the shots which send a stream of ghosts
against the day: the brave, the straight, the young.

Alison Brackenbury

If you have any comments on this poem,  Alison Brackenbury   would be pleased to hear from you.