I Have Heard Old Joe Say

I have heard old Joe say at midnight the deceased of the town
From the cemetery on high street to the park walk down
And talk of the past when they lived in years gone by
In the still of the night under the starlit sky

He never does see them though to him they are near
Their voices and footsteps he often does hear
The familiar voices he says he does know
Of his mentors long before into a man he did grow

The locals say old Joe is not right in the head
That he imagines he hears the voices of the dead
There is something about him that just is not right
Since he often goes to the town-park at twelve in the night

But he always looks relaxed and quite sound mentally
At least anyway this is how he seems to me
That he can or cannot connect to the dead is not for me to say
Since everyone is gifted in some sort of a way

At midnight to the town-park he often does walk
Where the ghosts of the town cemetery meet for to talk
The deceased mentors of his boyhood seventy years ago
He knows them by their voices though they are invisible to Joe.