This week’s poem about returning to live in Denmark after several lifetimes lived in other parts of the world. The amazing levels of trust in this society, the obvious feeling of security people have, are an enormous contrast to the locked doors, the high walls, the barred windows I have grown used to over many years. I can’t help staring…

Ghost

 

Can’t help staring, slyly watching

how they interact, anticipating dinner,

changing channels, sliced by window blinds

they gather around tasteful furniture.

 

Television gives a ghostly glow

between open curtains, movement,

life and smells of frying fish.

Out here the streets is quiet.

 

Unobserved, I observe behind glass

people alone, people in groups,

movement in back rooms, calling and clutter,

cat in the window, one chair out of place.

 

Preparing their evening meal,

heads bent over steaming stoves,

stirring smells of dinner into evening air,

lifting lids to poke boiling potatoes.

 

Nordic lamps, designer sofas,

bright paintings splashed on white walls,

elegantly shaped plants, exotic knick-knacks

artistically arranged to signaling places they’ve been.

 

A chair pushed back by a gaping terrace door,

curtains fallen on rooms full of golden light,

candles lit, although it’s still early.

Early for a ghost to be walking the streets.

 

 

Nyborg 2016