Portraits are Ghosts

It's hard not to see

These portraits as ghosts,

As a sheen of static dust

Between the sun and I.

They shimmer (if skies are clear)

And sift through time so adeptly

So as to make us weep with joy

Or arrest us in a prison nostalgic-

Though ghosts to me they remain.

So I, with gentle palm sweeping,

Brush aside the glinting dust,

Remove the tear-forged shackles

And bask in the purity of cascaded Being.

"Let the dead bury the dead"

And let the living carry the living,

Aloof to promised portraits immortality,

For one is of fading as the other is of Form.