If I live long enough to live As long as I have again I'll write it in a paperback Call it "There & Back Again" A wink at the fable Of mountains and magic Not all that far off from A life spent in transit Some words on the wilderness From a failed high school poet With half written metaphors To buffer the sadness Erase the names Sub out the dates and Blur out the passage Those years in the forest When I foraged and forged my own truth Conjure a ghost I once knew Conjure a ghost I once knew These days it's uncertain I'll ever leave Michigan Been bound by a spell or some incantation I gaze in the absence from a park bench near a campus With eyes still wide open I channel and I drift To a place through the evergreens Out in the morning breeze My breath in the air The dark wood before me Somewhere in the firmament Or how I imagine it The crunching of snow Summons me to the present view Conjure a ghost I once knew It was you It was you It was you Conjure a ghost I once knew