On Libraries and Graveyards: A Boston Moment

On Libraries and Graveyards: A Boston Moment

Vexed, unable to escape

From the ghosts I’d been chasing:
            Devils, saints, fathers
            Omnipresent, timeless,
            Enduring still.
 
Encrypted in memories,
Forgotten, now remembered:
            Echoes, wails, echoes,
            In hallowed space, green Commons,
            Echoing still.
 
Minutemen and patriots,
Living grounds erupt again:
            Blood-soaked, wrought, alive,
            Graveyards, book-stacks, ripe gardens
            Whispering still.
 
Quick, embrace fleeting presence,
Ancestors and progeny:
            Converge, fight, withdraw,
            Boundaries erased in haste,
            Surveying still.
 
Self-barricaded within,
Doors locked, sashes drawn, lights off:
            Spirits, texts, tombstones,      
            Where life and death cohabit,           
                        Pushing out the in,
                        Leaning against gravity,
                        Fortified in brownstone turrets,
                                    Or cellars—dungeons—safe.
                        Vexed—captive bailiff—
                                    Shadows
            Procreant still.