On the sandy beaches of Normandy, France…
still sailing the oceans and seas…
men, women, animals, children, continue on –
some free to act independently,
some stuck in a cycle forevermore
as if repeating the steps of a spectral dance…
as if conjured back to life,
even for a short time,
some people still live on
in the words that they have written –
it is as if the simple act of reading
and letting someone’s voice be heard again
allows them to once again breathe.
While walking the fields of old battle-grounds…
while sitting in the room of a house
thought to be haunted…
while walking through a grave-yard
without a sound to be heard all-around…
while thinking about somewhere and someone,
whose bones and whose life-force still resides there,
every time my senses and my intuition go into over-drive
and I can feel, and I can almost see the face,
and hear the voice of a passed-on spirit –
someone who is still bound to Earth and to its gravity
and who have not chosen, for whatever reason,
to ascend to heaven.
Long-dead soldiers
still walking through the woods
of the state of Georgia, in America;
homeless ghosts still walk the streets of New York City
hoping that perhaps in death
someone might notice them, finally;
patients still walk the wards
of long-since abandoned hospitals
as if they were a zombie;
homes that were once taverns, in England,
still have patrons waiting
to order a drink at imaginary bars.
When we die, I believe that
we leave more behind than what we realize;
when our spirit leaves our body,
I believe that there are sensitive people
who can tell that we are still on Earth –
as if our echo-self has the pungent smell of burnt toast;
when we close our eyes for the last time,
I do not think that that in any way, shape, or form,
is our final goodbye;
when you live a life, like many of us do,
and you share a world with other people
it is only natural to not want to leave that place –
and there are those among the living
who know that, and who recognize that want and that need,
and who choose to open themselves up
to being the conduit and the host of a ghost.
markthepoet.me 