Boo!

The odd thing about ghosts
is not about how the undead
frighten those receptive to them,
but how they make the already nervous-
because of how the living unnerve them-
even more unnerved. A sensitivity
to dishonour will lead the the living
to be more aware of the undead
who cannot rest, because their death
still leaves them dishonoured.

Nor is it to do with how those unreceptive
to the uneasy spirits of the past seem to be cynics
towards sensitivity, because they can't sense
what others do. and they are more ill at ease
with what they can't see than they admit.

The oddity is how the old stories of people
who passed out of this life with debtors
-in good will rather more than finance-
are not as hostile as we make them seem.
The living generate far greater hostility
and destruction amongst each other
than the dead could ever haunt us with.