Ready

That creaking
is coming from
your childhood, 
a tomb long
left open far behind you
that is now slowly closing
with all your beloved spirits
caught inside. 
From now on 
you are going to have to
move forward
with silence
at your back and
noise ahead
waiting for you
to arrive and make
sense of it without
their voices
to assist you. 
It is as if
they expected you
to have learned
something from all
that whispering,
as if they knew
all along
that childhood
is a tomb and that
its door would close
on them someday,
startling you,
leaving you grieving 
and dimmed
but ready.