Bentari is a ghost story, among other things. It opens with a murder. The victim’s survivors carry on with a mighty power billowing their sails—the power of ghostly memories on the wind.

Ghosts are important in our lives. We gather on a dark night during this Season. We drink cocoa, watch Christmas ships sailing by—and we tell ghost stories. Stories flicker like goblins hiding in the night. I have one this year about Oregon’s first public hanging in 1859—the fate of Danforth Balch. There is another about brave Appalachian women—the horseback librarians who added value to many impoverished lives. Harsh circumstances be damned. And there is this, about my “Ghost of Paradise.”[1]

Where are you now ghost of my heart? The hero of my youth, the challenger, the fleet brave bearer of everything!
I hear you

Ghosting through towering castles in the blue beyond.
You glide with Mercury at your heels and
no boundaries succeed where you hold sway!
I hear you

Where have they taken you, the champion?
Though I am covered in cold loneliness, your warmth is present.
When fear and anger haunt my vision, your smile arrives,
your hand rests upon my head.
I hear you

Your speed was meant to be. Hard sadness, your companion was left in dust.
You answer duty with deft humor and
you invoke involuntary smiles.
Take one gift, Sir, in return, and if you please, Sir—a smile the way you like it,
as broad as the shining sea, compulsory and free!
I hear you
I hear you

And I see you in youth's gentle bloom, so lean and promising,
before the wars could scar, before the world of work carried you away,
so full of power and gusto!

I believe in Paradise because of you—abiding in the memory of my heart
where I hear you loud and clear

Photos: Clair Brown (1923-1994) circa 1943, on his way to complete officer training; and the Christmas ship watch

[1] © 2018 North Star to Heaven/Bentari Project