[stylist] Ghosts of yesterday poem

[Barbara Hammel]

Okay, here’s a poem I wrote earlier this year.  After I get done reading the last book in The Earth’s Children series, I intend to try writing more poems—I have my seasons sestinas to finish up—and maybe I can be taught how to write better by taking criticism and change things before I consider it a final draft.
Here goes:

    GHOSTS OF YESTERDAY



These hallowed halls are haunted

By the ghosts who, yesterday,

Were the life and breath of Iowa Braille

But now have gone away.



You can hear their footfalls echo

Off the sturdy limestone walls,

And if you listen closely

You can hear their childish calls.



Almost a century and a half

Of memories linger here.

As I roam these silent hallways

On my cheek there falls a tear,



For in the utter stillness

All those children hold their breath,

Their ghostly hearts are terrified

Of their forever death.



But sometimes in the silence

All those sunny smiles of old,

Overwhelm my heart with gladness

And more joy than I can hold.



These hallowed halls are haunted

And if you can walk on by

Without hearing or seeing those darlings

Then you haven't ear or eye



For the history that lingers,

Which we wish to not let go.

But the times they are a-changin',

And you new folks just don't know.



To you it's just a building

That was built in days of yore

To house and teach blind people,

Nothing less and nothing more.



The facts of its existence

You can hold inside your head:

What classes were taught and where,

And when and what was fed.



There are piles and piles of pictures

Of people you never knew,

And lists of names not familiar,

So don't know which goes with who.



And, frankly, in your forward-looking,

Futuristic sight,

You don't want to think of haunted halls

When you turn off the light.



You don't want to walk by daylight

And glimpse a little shadow pass,

You don't want to, in the quiet,

Hear light tread of lad or lass.



You don't want to sense the presence

Of the children we used to be,

All our talk of ghosts that haunt here

Is making you feel creepy.



But these hallowed halls are sacred

To us oldtimers of the place,

We don't find it creepy to meet

Ghosts of our childhoods face to face.



Those piles and piles of pictures

Of people you never knew

Have names we find familiar,

We know which goes to who.



And we know when they attended

And friends they might have known,

And friends of friends who knew them

Till our web of connection has grown.



This isn't just a building

That was built in days of yore,

To house and teach blind people.

It is ever so much more.



It was home away from home to us,

This Braille Jail, some would say,

But the grown-ups owed our parents

Safety for us to learn and play.



These limestone walls and hardwood floors

Hold precious memories

You new folks just can't grasp because

They're not your used-to-bes.



You never saw it thriving with

The clamor of children at play,

Or with classrooms of children learning

Or large and small kids bowing to pray.



For you this is an empty shell,

The life has ceased to be,

So you're filling it with strangers;

Crowding out its history.



Those little lisping whispers

And the steps upon the floor

Are our imagination

That you wish you could ignore.



But these hallowed halls are haunted

By the ghosts who, yesterday,

Were the the life and breath of Iowa Braille,

But now have gone away.




Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.--John F. Kennedy