One hot summer night a bunch of us kids living on the reservation bought a lot of beer and drove out several miles from town to a most deserted place. We drove far off of the road back to where we couldn't drive any farther off the road. There was an old cemetery about fifty feet from the car from which we definitely heard someone whistling on the other side of the fence. My friend Jim Byrd got out to investigate. He soon came running back to tell us that there was definitely someone or something there. Add to the fact that the ghost lights were abundant and it was foggy and you have the perfect setup for something ghostly to appear, such as donkeys appearing out of the fog in front of the car and you have eleven drunken and deeply frightened teenagers.

                                    "Ghost Lights"

eleven of us in a 58 Pontiac,

far from town,

smoking, drinking, and making out, wasted,

1840's cemetery across the fence,

in the black night of adolescence,

the whistler walked,

spooky fog revealing horrifying giants,

appearing in front of and on the hood, donkeys,

scared the s*** out of us,

ghost lights bounce back and forth, up and down, while the walker whistles in the cemetery

across the old fence,

drunk, frightened, scared shitless,

the ghost lights played that dark foggy night,

while teens smoked and drank and made out,

the air was chilled wine,

the fog was thick, donkeys appeared as horrifying giants,

while the whistler walked,

I would love to see the ghost lights again,

before I die,

like the night fog revealing drunken, dim donkey images,

the long ago cemetery northeast of Browning,

where ghost lights dance,

when evening whistles drift in like fog,

and giants drift in and out of the darkness,

balls of white gleaming,

bouncing around, back and forth,

they mesmerize,

enchanting dances of eerie, mysterious white,

fascinating, dreamy, and memorable,

I was fascinated and still am,

I want to go back to the land,

where the whistler walks,

just on the other side of the fence.

© Sam Hyde

    01-04-12