Beautiful Cynicism III

     to give up customs one barely had time to learn,
     not to see roses and other promising Things in terms of a human future;
     no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;
     to leave even one’s own first name behind,
     forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
Strange to no longer desire one’s desires.
Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction.
And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.
Though the living are wrong to believe in the too-sharp distinctions which
     they themselves have created.
Angels (they say) don’t know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along in it, through both realms forever,
     and their voices are drowned out in its thunderous roar.

In the end, those who are carried off early no longer need us:

   they are weaned from earth’s sorrows and joys,
   as gently as children outgrow the soft breasts of their mothers.
But we, who do need such great mysteries,
   we for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit’s growth -:
   could we exist without them?