I Met A Ghost Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

I met a Ghost - it was three centuries hence
For when we be ghosts we travel forth at will
Backwards and forwards in the mills of time
And recognizing him by the look
I recalled his great ancestor
(great-great-great grandfather of that ancestor
Who was in earth round my time of flesh and blood)
And I sad:
‘How! How grown the race and dynasty
Of your great ancestor!
Not of me!
Sole roam I and small'
At which he reared himself and sad:
Said:
‘See you not that I be also Ghost
And futile be descent to flesh and blood
Futile immense multiplicities of descent
For see
The more immense the descent be
In as proportion immense here we come
And fall.'
He stopped.
And then I spoke:
I see that you have Wisdom that was no
When in flesh and blood:
I too in flesh and blood dynasty less
Descent less stand:
But then we see we all finished as Ghosts
As same
As equal
As same
That we more wisdom have than in flesh and blood
And more than that, our priorities.'
‘That is the Word, ' erect he
Said:
‘Priorities.
But we get wise too late for flesh and blood
In all these Things and Priorities
And bequeathed be such Wisdom by the dust.'
Then I:
‘Now I see what I saw not before
And above all, the more,
More Wisdom got:
Yet
To qualify for this we all have
To resign and renounce to That
And all Priorities of flesh and blood:
And now
Now both we and your multitudes in
Race discover what new wisdom come to us
As here one by one to here descend
And if in multitudes by multitudes descend
Or to say wisely more, more in wisdom we ascend.

Then took we hands and together moved.
‘Lead! My honored sire! , ' said he
‘We be equal and same now and all:
Come take me meet more of your dynasty'
‘Dynasty? ! Dynasty so called
For now
We that we be descendants of the same ancestor discovered
Twin brothers equal.
Equal and same; equal and same in destiny
And Family'
So moved we on through those glimpsing darks
To where other Ghosts stood and waited us.