Some evenings, there are ghosts. There are. Ghosts come in through the door when people come in, being unable to open doors themselves and not knowing (not knowing they are ghosts)

they could pass through anything, like thought. They come and stand, move aimlessly about as if each one of them had come to meet someone who hadn’t arrived. I always thought

of haunts and spirits as having a special power like witches to do whatever they wanted to. They don’t. Pure energy without a cage can do nothing at all. Whatever power

pushes or pulls the things of this world to any purpose does it by piston or pistol, mill whell or spring or some such pushing back. Spirit freed fades into the world.

Inertia, which is habit, holds their lines a little while and then like memories they weaken and fade. The glow is energy going. They seem like actors trying to remember lines.

The trouble is they don’t know they’re dead. We don’t know very much about ghosts; we think that some of those who aren’t prepared and die surprised don’t understand they’re dead.

They hang around. The kindest thing to do is if you should ever see one is simply to say, “Listen, you’re dead. You’re dead. Get out of here.” That’s what the ghost eventually will do

when we’ve told it again and again to go. “Get out of here. Get out of here. You’re dead.” They can’t, of course, go anywhere on purpose; you have to give them intent to make them go.

And who knows where? All this has to do with Newton’s laws.  The figure disappears. Somewhere there’s a place. Be kind. Be firm. Remember the only thing you have to do

is tell them the truth. Say, “You’re dead. Get out.” Ignore the slow confusion on their faces. Never pity. They can soak up pity. Sympathy makes them denser and drags it out.

If pity comes, don’t let it go to them. Watch for a sudden change in temperature. You still have a death to deal with. Pity yourself, who could be one of them

Of History and Hope --Miller Williams

We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where.   In ceremonies and silence we say the words,   telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.   The great and all the anonymous dead are there.   We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.   The rich taste of it is on our tongues. But where are we going to be, and why, and who?   The disenfranchised dead want to know. We mean to be the people we meant to be,   to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how except in the minds of those who will call it Now? The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?   With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row— and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together cannot become one people falling apart. Who dreamed for every child an even chance cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not. Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head   cannot let chaos make its way to the heart. Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child   cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot. We know what we have done and what we have said,   and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,   believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become— just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.