WHO, when I scream, will hear me?
Maybe an angel? Or, a man of firmer regulation?
That’s the chance you take with screaming.
Could I put myself in the shoes of s/he
Who hears a scream at close quarters?
I fear not. It would take a leap of the heart
Which is beyond my means. Nobody comes to mind.
Nobody suddenly comes into my heart:

I pass into this stronger existence.
In this ancient house where everything screams
Out a story of those who once lived, loved
Hated within these walls.
Paved with a hundred stones,
Ferns and grasses now grow in the eaves;
But numerous as they are, ghosts are insubstantial.

They are defined out of existence
By my old memories which are more beautiful than nothing
Terrible nothing,. So in the  beginning, we endure.

We admire our own endurance because it serenely spurns
Any chance to destroy us. Every angel is terrible
In my heart, free, with all the wet and rain.

And so I behave and swallow the call
Towards dark, plunging sobs. Oh, who do we need to be?
Angels not, people not, resourceful animals not.
I have already noticed
That I am not very reliable at home
But I do well in the uninterpreted world
Of signs and symbols. Where, people say,
There is much too much
Of that old: once upon a time malarkey.