Classic Poem

Please open it and look again.
Ever between these pages
crawl only the ghosts of those who starved to death.
In every village darkened by the hand-grease of daily use
the habits that still live
clean the blackened chimneys of the lamps.
The children drowned in the ocean of their dreaming,
in a yellowed clapping of their hands.
Their ghosts rise and clamor
Give me tasty candies
Give me thrilling candlelight,
then they form a wave that at once collapses.
Several medals left by someone long ago rust away.
Between these pages, it is always
the universe of a past time
and within that universe ghosts
of children who died of starvation
hover with the ghosts of those who will die.
Family is but a few pallid volumes and
a pencil with a bruised lead,
its eraser no longer virgin.
Not one star's light in the sky
at the end of the bare season's branch,
only the white-naped wind sometimes blows.