It has been my odd experience to have twice lived across the street from a huge, lighted Cross.
The first appeared to be the height of three men standing on each others shoulders. It was across a wide field and a road, from where I used to house-sit a number of occasions over the years..It was in the yard of a private dwelling, and was (so I was told) a memorial to a relative who had died in a mine disaster.
When the sun went down, it came on. Whether someone in the house turned it on, or light sensors on the edifice gauged the amount of darkness, I do not know. The street was a dead end street, so there was not a lot of traffic. However, if I so chose, I could get the full benefit of it. It shone brightly for hours onto the front of the house. And into the house if one was in one of the front rooms or bedrooms. It had a blue hue, and an unrelenting vibrancy that made one eventually think of neon. I didn’t so much think of spirituality or practicality, but did wonder at the waste.of money and resources for – let’s be honest – so little effect. I also (somewhat uncharitably) assumed that the cross did not shine forth from both sides, and the folk in the house behind it were not affected.
Then, years later, I found myself in another house, across another street, from a giant cross left alight all night. This cross did not shine directly into the house, but slanted more along the street, and not across it. It is affixed by mighty metal stanchions and stays atop a huge Evangelical church. When darkness comes, its emblazoned light can be seen across a whole city and, by my reckoning, into the hills beyond. I am not certain, but I also imagine it can be seen by ships at sea.
But, both crosses bestow upon me the light of the Lord, and I’ll happily take whatever blessings might be granted.
Shine on me.
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(As ghosts are wont to do)
When they go to wander,
In those places,
They used to play.
The Ghost wanted
(As ghosts are wont to do)
When all full of revenge,
To pull the living
To the Other side.
The Ghost hated
(As ghosts are wont to do)
Those who had been mean,
And hateful, and cruel,
And so so selfish.
The Ghost tugged
(As ghosts are wont to do)
With bony hands and fingers,
Hooked into both
Memory and conscience.
The Ghost succeeded
(As ghosts are wont to do)
Tenfold times ten again,
Turning troubled dream
Into shrieking nightmare.
The Ghost retreated
(As ghosts are wont to do)
At the blush of dawn.
Slipped behind the drape,
Waiting ever patiently.

~ I take credit for everything.
~ Thank you. Thank You!
~ You’re welcome.
~ Let me shake your hand.
~ Of course.
~ I suppose a hug is too much?
~ Not at all.
~ Oh. Oh. You are Death’s dream.
~ Any chance you can take out Biden?
~ Oh, I am but a foot soldier. Anyway – he wears a mask.
~ Coward.
~ I love it when you talk like that.
~ He’s keeping his distance.
~ But you don’t.
~ I got guards. No one will get closer than six feet.
~ Of course.
~ I like that – six feet.
~ Why?
~ That’s how deep they bury you. Ground Zero.
~ But aren’t you worried about your followers?
~ Why?
~ Well – you’ll lose their votes.
~ Nah – that doesn’t matter.
~ But you’ll need every vote.
~ Oh, we just get them from the graveyard, too.
An Excerpt from my Kafka In The Castle, where I fill in all of his missing diary entries. Perhaps because the summer heat is getting to him, his patience is thin with those whose hope outstrip the realities of life and – particularly – death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
17 June 1917
I am told that you can’t lose people, that “…they will always be with you in memory.” Max is heavy with this type of comment – as if the hand of sentimentality brushed off his coat before he set out on each day.
Both the intelligent and the slow of wit seem to be struck dumb by this nonsense. Emotion, I suppose – hope, I suppose – has no place for reason among its folds. But, if you can not touch, or have expectation of being touched, then the people and places are as gone as yesterday.
There is no way to travel back, and the future beckons with only an empty gesture and a hollow laugh. Bowing low at the open doorway to usher you in, but the room is empty. And will remain ever so.
When they are no longer there to hold their hand out to you – well, then they are no longer there.
My two gals, Alison Alexandra and her friend, Amanda, went on a sea voyage. A voyage via a freighter, and not a cruise ship. They stop in the ports where the freighter stops, and they take visits of the town if they so desire.
On one of their times on shore, they decide to visit a Police Museum. One of the exhibits is a Death Mask of a hanged murderer. They take great interest in this, noting the repose of the face.
I once taught a workshop on Supernatural writing. For my workshop I took advantage to take my students on a field trip to see the death mask of a historically known poet. The death mask was conveniently on view in a display case in a near-by building.
None of them had even heard of ‘death masks’, let alone seen one. I invited them to incorporate the idea into their writing exercises. Some did, some did not.
However, it’s possible this visit to Death elicited the following story from one of my students.
My student and her husband had purchased a new house. Cleaning and renovations eventually took them to the back loft area, which was piled high with decades of accumulated detritus from a long life.
They cleared out beds and boxes and newspaper piles and magazines and bundles of clothes and on and on. Near the end of this process, my student noticed a “clump of something”on one of the wooden beams of the loft.
Getting ladder and flashlight her husband climbed to see what it was.
It was the end of a number of knotted bed sheets.