Exorcism

To boot the ghost, a simple thing.
Spell, incantation, or weaving.
A few words here, a few words there,
Some props and it's out of your hair.
But sometimes the dead don't easily lie
Or rest awhile and then make a reply.

But all you need to banish them
Is some form of faith (even zen)
A few props, belief, and desire
And the ghost falls down into fire.
Or, if you're more kind, the ghost falls upward
To gain wings and a halo and a sword.

And who are we to dissolve them,
To undo their bonds of spirit when
They only wish to wait a while
Bound here by love or darker guile.
What scares us to speak the banishing spells?
What's above or below may not bode well.

But still we banish the spirits
Force what will be away to flit
Between the worlds lost and alone
Bereft of hope or hearth of home.
As if we, too, won't walk down the ghost road
Thinking these last moments are what we're owed.