In the Old Park

“In the old park, deserted in the frost,
A ghost was reminiscing to a ghost.

- Can you recall our ecstasy of long ago?
- Why stir the memory? Why do you want to know?[1]

The grey lands stretch ever on and on in joyless tedium. What is there to say about the faded memories of ecstasy? What possibly can break through the shell of unreality? The true hell is the final result of preferring yourself to the only Ground of Reality. That result is a perfection of isolation from God, and isolation from all that belongs to God; isolation from Love and all that is lovely, a perfection of complete and total alienation. Why recall the ecstasy of long ago? Why stir the memory?

Why do the ghosts walk in the old park reminiscing in the frosty eve? It is their time of refrigerium, a holiday from hell. They have several options, one option, the true intent of the refrigerium, is the standing offer to ascend from the grey lands to the table lands of heaven. Once there they could choose life if only they would.

The other option has to do with what we call haunting. Some haunt the old places, the settings of their faded memories, the places where earthly reality once reached out to touch them. Others haunt the places that marked the passage from the world into the grey lands. Other’s enjoy haunting the weak and superstitious as though causing fear would relieve them of the fear of being ghosts.

They walk in the old park in the frosty air. Do they remember saying, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry?” Unfortunate line! The acknowledgment of their personal responsibility in causing pain for each other may have had the power to break through their self-chosen alienation, but the power of the moment of decision has passed for ever. Now walking in the park they circle around the ecstasy of long ago and deny the possibility of opening a door to reality. Why stir the memory? The moment is lost. They can no longer feel, so why should they want to know?

[1] Paul Verlaine (1844 -1896), “An Exchange of Feelings,” trans. Alistair Elliot, in Love Poems, ed. Peter Washington, (Everyman’s Pocket Library, Alfred A, Knopf, 1993) p. 229