Ghosts

A week in the new house and we’re hearing and seeing things.
Black walnut trees scatter the light. Yellow leaves falling early

and long, through August and September. A few nights ago
someone banging around downstairs woke me up.

At my desk I hear a heavy foot take two strides in the room above
then stop. The room is as empty as a rationale.

One of my dogs is going to die. Almost a reminder of himself.
Behind the house I’m walking beside him in the cooling world

when a walnut pod, size of a baseball, smacks off the eave, bounces
and resounds on the porch’s tin roof. So there they are, my ghosts,

and so many left to fall, real despite what I believe or don’t, reminders,
inconsequential and eventually crumbling within softening husks

but for the moment so hard you’d have to drive a pickup truck
over them to hear a few of them crack open the inedible fruit.