Midnight whispers wake us, voices we know
Call, calling out from generations long ago
Begging us to climb vine-covered walls
Where shadows hide and moonlight falls
To secret gardens where nightmares grow

Hands clasped together—our protective shield
Quick, quickly we cross the vast muddy field
Through scrawny, tawny bramble copse
Where starlight magic jumps and chops
Past broken mushrooms laying half-healed

There we hear the night’s beating heart
Thump, thumping loudly as if tearing apart
Stumble, trip through twisty almost-road
Past two-headed raven and three-footed toad
Where ghost flowers’ bold eyes flit and dart

Luckily these sickly pink flowers can’t shout
Roar, roaring for backup from monsters about
Instead slowly blinking they don’t look away
Following our movements with nothing to say
Until dark gloomy clouds turn the light out

Panicked we run despite no guiding star
Trip, tripping on half-rotted logs where they are
Fingers slip, paths divide—until it’s only me
Standing beneath an unwavering willow tree
Hoping nothing near has the power to mar

The drowsy pink sun eventually rises all sad
Cry, crying for you—my sweet-hearted lad
Lost in the wood where the early bird sings
Days, weeks, and months we look for your things
Until winter wipes clear all the traces we had

• This week’s poem follows the format of Robert Frost’s “Ghost House” using the same rhyming structure and ending words. The painting was found at Goodwill and my teenage daughter added the eyes and other pen details.