Theme Thursday - Ghost

I don't really have an opinion on ghosts. I know people who swear they've seen them, but I've also heard plausible explanations for what they saw. Personally, I've never seen a ghost. However... I do believe all living things leave something of an "energy signature" behind when they leave. So who knows? In any case, I have a poem I wrote in 1981 about Newport's primary colonial-era residential neighborhood, combined with some shots of the area.

The Point - Newport

Such a pretty street,
all gas lamps, brick walks,
and old, old houses.
What happens here at night,
after we've gone to bed
and the last, long peal
of the midnight bell has been
swallowed by the dark?

Then rockers rock
and stairs creak
with remembered weight.
Teacups clatter
and clink in their saucers
in memory of long-past parties.
Books float from shelf to table,
opening to a well-worn page,
or to the flyleaf inscribed
in a long outdated hand.









Do those who live here awaken
and tremble
at the sounds
of midnight movement?
Or do they turn and sigh,
comforted,
in the atmosphere of peaceful security?











Old houses aren't haunted;
they're just nostalgic.

-A. Roy Hilbinger, November, 1981

Speaking of haunted houses... This week's video for the theme concerns English literature's most famous haunted house, and the couple who haunt it. The novel is Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and the video uses probably the most haunting piece of music ever written about that book: Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights". And the video also uses scenes from the best movie of the novel, the 1939 movie starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Enjoy!

Photos, poem, and text © 1981, 2007, & 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger