“Nah, the old falling-down barn’s on purpose,”
both of us with our winter coats on now, walking
around the 1867 house that looks like it was built
yesterday, the old chicken coop that’s chickenless
now,walking out into the cornfields, the cobs all fuzzy
with their yellow-brown threads, “the house is
comfortable…it’s not that I either believe or don’t
believe in ghosts, but I’m almost there myself and
wherever else they may be…who knows, if I found
ghostprints on the snow I wouldn’t be suprised, I
can still hear my grandmother, ‘Finish that stew and
eat that corn down to the last kernel…if you want
any icecream and a piece of my Prague chocolate
cake,’ she used to always tell me that she wanted to
go back to Prague, find the old streets again, the old
cafes, the benches, river-spots…..”