The Cloaked Halls of Mayville Plantation Manor
Eric Bonholtzer
Watch.
The symbol of time chimes against
halls once lively with the pitter-
patter of servants feet, mud-tracked footfalls
across weathered oaken inlays of stilted regality.
Careful now not to stutter nor stumble.
Silent counterpoint to the ticking still
of a grandfather clock cracking with the thunder.
Lightning lit outside lead shot windows
gazing upon a plantation fields of sallow
grains of wood fallow now long since gone dead.
Gray. Gray walls of weather parched peeling
wooden timbre hallowed as the halls that time forgot.
Unsung songs mire the wind and air
forever haunting, forever filling this still
night’s repository of broken halls and dreams.
Fire would be nice to light spirits within
that once danced these halls as master slept
and son had long since been put to rest.
Sleeping, dreaming, seeing memories, visions of these
halls: lifeless, life filled, as a void within one’s own mind,
forever upon this lonely haunt.
