From the cosmic accident of birth
To the final grotesque Joke of Death—²
We are not resigned to the Shutting away of loving
Hearts in the Hard Ground—so it is and so it will be,
For so it has been, time out of mind: into the Darkness
They go, the wise and lovely lovers and thinkers, into the
Earth with you: be one with dull, indiscriminate Dust!³
The reason for living is to get Ready
To stay Dead a long time.⁴
Between the living world and the
World of death is a Clear, Cold Pane:
One who looks too close Fogs it with
Their breath, or holds their breath too long.⁵
In the face of Death and all that it is and all that it
Shall be we stand Powerless—as if we’re no more
Than a string caught in the early morning Wind.⁶
Death ignores protocol: a sweep of
Its cape whisks us at Random into
Dust—it is not even looking—⁷
Death is a dialogue
Between the Spirit & the Dust—⁸
Death is a Tower to which the soul Ascends
To spend a Meditative hour—that never ends—⁹
Our Dream of death: Luminous atomic
Particle-arc falls across and through
The Curve of eternal Time-Space …¹⁰
¹ Ghassan Zaqtan tr. Fady Joudah, That Life
² Sylvia Plath, Dirge for a Joker
³ Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music
⁴ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
⁵ Wendell Berry, The Cold Pane
⁶ Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River
⁷ Denise Levertov, During a Son’s Dangerous Illness
⁸ Emily Dickinson, Death is a Dialogue Between
⁹ Langston Hughes, Tower
¹⁰ Ann Lauterbach, Task: To Open