He didn’t mean to die,
and break his daddy’s heart,
that poor little Willy, but he did.
We almost lost our Mr. Lincoln to grief.

Only the kind spirits saw the danger,
knew what had to be done, and selflessly
applied limited etheric skills to pull the boy
from the clutches of schlerosis. To pull daddy
back from his shocked, catatonic state.

The scene was chaotic, as one might expect
when a hodgepodge of circus clowns, comedians,
fathers and doting mothers in various states of decay
confer on strategies best avoided by the living,
and as certain to confuse .

But Mr. Lincoln was closer to joining them himself
than any living person could see. He felt their pull,
and let them lead him back to his boy.
The urgency of his love broke through to his son.

Willy’s spirit raised itself up just in time to be saved
from eternal misery. His spirit arose with a clap
of thunder to the afterlife, and Mr. Lincoln’s spirit
was yanked through the graveyard fence, away from the place.

The spirits drifted back to their flamboyant displays and
collegial mutterings, no emotion attached to the scene
they had created. It had had to be done, and they did it.
A few of their number were rewarded.

They ascended, to the bafflement of the others.
To the bafflement of the readers.
To understanding only of the brilliant writer who gave them life.
And one other, for whom the spirits of the bardo solved
a long-standing literary problem.

(I am uncomfortable posting this as a poem, but the hour is up and I have no time to revise now. Pretend it is poetry until I can make it so! :))