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
When the black vastness overtakes us,
we stand in the tracks of shepherds
whose words on such nights
connected cold lights to form
the winged horse and flame-born bird
and the twins that led them forward.
But to speak the astral truths,
to see our names consumed
in unquenchable heat,
to fuse with unsayable source
shooting across the skies,
straight through the holes in our eyes.
–Donald Levering
When the black vastness overtakes us,
we stand in the tracks of shepherds
whose words on such nights
connected cold lights to form
the winged horse and flame-born bird
and the twins that led them forward.
But to speak the astral truths,
to see our names consumed
in unquenchable heat,
to fuse with unsayable source
shooting across the skies,
straight through the holes in our eyes.
–Donald Levering
The stars now die in the morning sky
And lose their glimmer one by one
The mountain peaks at down
The morning light turns back the night
The showers beauty on this tropic place
–William Brown
Costa Rica
In this world of wonder where I reside
Mountains soar to caress the azure sky
Forests surge from lowland to mountain side
And rivers of gold flow to silver seas
The gentle land to glorify
“Honey,
musn’t be blue.
It’s not so much do what you like
as it is that you like what you do.”
–James Lapine
Sunday in the Park with George
“Our Town is not offered as a picture of life in a New Hampshire village, or as a speculation about the conditions of life after death (that element I merely took from Dante’s Purgatory.) It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life.” –Thornton Wilder
The symphony of insects explodes at night.
The cocinera chops the papaya she’s gathered.
The writer ghost hovers with sad memories.
The jardinero picks green and yellow limones by the bridge.
Red breasted birds sing throated concerts. By day,
perfumed flores camouflage mariposa.
–from my upcoming book Banshees
Banshees, Eileen’s newest collection of poems,
will be available from Flutter Press soon!
I have been writing since I was 8 years old. Continue to look and you will find information and original pieces I have written. Look under poems, fiction, nonfiction and academic writing. There is also information on my education, organizations and residencies I have completed. Enjoy!
Eileen P. Kennedy Author 