Monday, March 24, 2008

Ode to the Dead

It’s been a while since I last went to see

The graves of those who died before I lived.

Though they still lie where they last were, it seems

That I am not the same. How could it be

That I have not found time? Even my dreams

Are dull without the visits of the dead.

Yet why should it be they who visit me,

Whilst I lie in my bed,

Full free to rise if I so choose, yet they

Are pent to rest in theirs till Judgement Day?



But why should mighty mountains care if men

Climb on their backs like swarms of ants, and why

Should open oceans pine for ships to sail

Across their vast immense expanses, when

Infinitude is theirs? Behind the veil

The dead return to whence they came: the Whole.

The Spirit lends its own wholeness to them,

The undiminished soul

In which they swell, and grow, and climb. Why, then,

Should they need us to visit them at all?



Yet men are mountains too, in their own way,

And locked inside each human heart, there lies

A universe, expanding endlessly;

A sun, whose light transcends all night and day.

And every mountain, high as it may be,

Cannot be such without its valley floor;

The deepest depths of every living sea

Are fastened to the shore.

All things by each are granted life, and thus

We need the dead. So too, the dead need us.

16/03/2008

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