Hello Sue,
          I´m a bit behind with responding to postings (I´ve actually had to do some work which was a nasty shock). However, I´ve had time now to look quickly at the various versions you´ve posted of this and at some of the comments and your replies to them. I have to say that this version here below is very definitely and clearly my favourite. I think it is very good. If it was mine I would definitely not have the reference to the child or Jesus at the end or the additions that appeared in the middle of some versions. I feel that these extra lines and phrases fall into the trap that I´m forever tumbling headlong into of telling more than the subject needs. I noticed that you said in one of your replies to another comment that you live in the Bible Belt and you wanted that location to feature in your poem. Of course, it is your poem but I would just add that as it stands in this version the poem speaks to someone who doesn´t live in the Bible Belt, has never been there and knows very little about what it might be like. In three words, it has a wider reference. As a non-Christian I can even live with words like `sins´ and `spirits´, although, if it was mine, I would change the title. Maybe you feel that it is important to you to have a specific sense of place, but as a reader I find this version far the more readable.




Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Spirits


Wearing their tattered shrouds
they slide into the graveyard of my dreams.
The grass moves where they walk
and Spanish moss sways.
You can't outlive us, I hear them say.
We never die. And from the dark loam
of memory they rise with false faces
and painted smiles.  I know them well.
They know me.  Once we were comrades.
Now, old sins whistle through empty rooms,
smell of decay. Where little is left--a chair,
a candle stub-- they remain, elemental as pain
or take their seats to rock upon the porch
or move the swing with its rusty chains.

Sue Scalf