Friday Writings #111: What would your ghost come back for?

 

  Greetings, dear Wordsmiths.

I'm inspired today by re-reading Walter de la Mare's Fare Well: a poem which has captured my imagination since I first encountered it in my teens. Exhorting its readers, in beautiful, musical rhythms, to appreciate the beauties of the world while they have life to do so, it asserts that it's  the appreciation of previous viewers which bestows that beauty, and that ours will do so for people to come. It's not so much that rather complex conclusion which has me love the poem; it's more the list of lovely things which the poet has cherished in the natural world, which he ardently desires shall live on for others after him to enjoy too.  These days we contemplate a world which may be ending, at  least for human life – indeed has already seen the extinction of many other forms of life. But at this point we don't know for sure that our world will end, indeed can't know until / unless we're still around to witness that happen. Reversal of the process may seem unlikely, but is not yet certain to be impossible. Governments may seem slow to take the necessary steps, but many scientists are working hard on possible solutions and already putting some into practice, e.g. researching ways to deal with plastic pollution in the oceans. Meanwhile, there are still many beauties, many joys, many delights to cherish.  All this got me pondering. Imagining that the world might go on forever after all, or at least for a very long time to come, yes I'd hope that people to come would love it as I have done – but I also like to imagine how lovely it would be to visit it again myself, as a disembodied spirit, to re-experience favourite things, favourite places (a beautiful landscapes, a loved old home ...) or even favourite people? Will you join me in this nostalgic fantasy??   I had trouble finding any ghost pictures freely available. Instead, I'm using  one of my own photos of the kind of beauty I'd love to be able to revisit. I'm thinking of a pleasurable, private kind of 'haunting,' undetectable to the living. But perhaps some of you would like to come back to redress old wrongs? Or maybe stop wars? Prevent disease? Or even enact revenge on someone, if only by scaring them witless? For this week's optional prompt, please let your mind wander among such possibilities and tell us, if you were to come back as a ghost after you die, what place or person or situation would you most like to haunt – er,  revisit?   Please post your writing to your blog and link us in (below) to that post. Only one post per person, please, of 369 words or fewer, old or new, poetry or prose, on topic or not.  You may link to us on your blog too, and leave us a message below if you wish. Next week, Magaly will invite us to write poetry or prose that includes a silver lining, or an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation.