I am a ghost

Who walks alone.

Beyond my yard

are high stone wall

I walk and move and speak with calm

But let me tell you this my friends;

Beneath the smile, the wave, the nod

There screams an inner storm.

It roars and wails and ears its hair.

It pours in torrents through my soul,

But God so stands that I may smile

And damn this thing which drives me on.

I move and walk and speak with calm;

The inner storm whips on,

The silent storm that none must know;

The raving past,

The hopeless now.

Reach out your hand and drag me in

Out of the screaming, beating waves,

Nor let me sink beneath the veil;

The fierce and raging storm.

O God above

Look down on us and let them know to still the storm,

And by their efforts bold, erase

Despair and wrath and gnashing teeth

And lead us out from dangerous dark

Into a sunlit place.

 

Charlotte T. Phillips, The  Inner Storm, Los Angeles, 1960.