Eulogy for the Costa Rican Ghosts

Knocking bamboo ushers in their moans.

Neither missing nor white,

they wonder who you are and what you are doing

and why life has left them and spared you –

imperfect as you are.

I feel their aching in the night air

their souls shaking in the tropical trees.

I remember their presence here

and bear them closer as time goes by…

my years stealing to inevitable death.

–Eileen Kennedy