I Hear a Ghost, I See a Sign

Let us begin in the vestibule of life or linger there in the before of what comes. What comes! I hear a ghost, I see a sign. Myself, I would that all the ghosts would come at once, a tempest, a haunting so complete that nothing else might show itself to light. Where are we? All about are trees.You! Are you tree or are you ghost? I cry out but hear no answer.Therefore you be tree. Oh, tree, oh tall tree in the porch of the ear, growing into impossibility. Who comes, who goes, who leaves us now, or who bear leaves in coming? Today one said they wanted no future and I replied I loved only the present, which it appears is a tempest of leaves, and of leaving. Ghosts, I imagine you as angry but see you as trees, simple and tall, gathering round me. Which is it? Be you proud or forgetful? Be I lost or remembered? There was once a glory in the contest but now there is ruin in the capital and ruin in the streets. From here I can almost hear the shouting. Indeed the shouting and the storm live only in my two ears. I must convince myself to act, to leave this place, since of all deeds the deed of silence is the worst. Hermits call to me from their far places, their words flying on winged feet into my halls of possibility. Send more! Send words like a cloud of insects to bite and harry me, send them like furies. I cannot stand where I am, but as I am I cannot walk away. Am is no amnesty. All my deeds grow underground, and wither I go, down to the roots and the tiny alchemies. As above, so below. As spelling is spell. As word in the mouth struggles to become word in the air, to become wind, to blow, to blow wild and hard, to horn and trumpet, to batter and break, to tear through ghosts and bring down trees, to hurricane through the capital streets and scrub the terrible gold from every wall. Oh walls, o wailing.

Are you having a Roman summer? A Homeric summer? A summer of ghosts and portents?

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Further adventures and new ways of seeing can be found in my book, The Uses of Art.

Artist Sal Randolph’s THE USES OF ART is a memoir of transformative encounters with works of art, inviting readers into new methods of looking that are both liberating and emboldening.

Dazzlingly original, ferociously intelligent.
— Michael Cunningham

A joyful, dazzling treasure-box of a book.
— Bonnie Friedman

Here’s a guide, to waking up, over and over again.
— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara

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