Saturday, April 3, 2010
The kids are asking now if ghosts are real.
They're old enough to give up Santa Claus,
Or maybe not -- depends on how they feel
About a wish, a dream, effect, and cause,
And death itself, a thing they haven't known.
Except a couple fish a year ago,
Now buried in the yard, and overgrown,
Th'exact location lost to mud and snow,
And young forgetfulness. And as for me,
The corporeal is adequately daunting.
I've energy for things that I can see,
And little time for someone's vengeful haunting.
Although... There's one that lives in Wales, I've read:
At night he pulls the covers off your bed.
And then, if that's an insufficient tease,
He comes around again and hides your keys.
I'd thought I put them down and then forgot.
This really could explain an awful lot.
(See: W. Jenkyn Thomas, More Welsh Fairy and Folk Tales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1957) p. 65.)


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Comments
@openroom you can at least RATE if your gonna take up so much space.
But to your question: I tell the kids I don't have an answer for them. Then we talk about what a ghost might look like, or sound like, and I let their imagination guide the discussion.
Lately, we haven't talked much about Santa. I think he may have reached his sell-by date, but they're not willing to let me know they're onto him. And of course I'll never rat him out.