When I was a kid I used to explore the abandoned estates and manors in the woods around my home in New England. As I climbed through the old buildings, with their broken arches and rooms overgrown with wild ivy, I would often feel like I was in the presence of the people who once lived in these homes, many of them dating back to the 1700’s.

The girl in this story may represent the spirit of a child in one of those homes who’s returned to me in a dream to tell her story. Like in Whitman’s poem, Darest Thou Now O Soul, the girl assumes the grandeur of a spiritual quest to loosen the material bonds of this world. The water, flowers and the swing are as the girl says, “beautiful,” yet fleeting reminders of a mortal life once lived.

As a challenge, the girl’s taunting invitation into the unknown, “No map there, nor guide, nor face of blooming flesh” - becomes a real adventure with the self. In the end - a beckoning, paternal force from beyond, acts as a stoic reminder to the soul’s imperviousness to a material world left behind.

All that’s left is a memory.