Here’s a fun little poem about death. Seriously, I believe that our fear of death, our fear of losing the selfhood we cling to so desperately, is the basis for much, if not all of that thing called sin. In some ways, I think sin is a kind of radical selfhood, a seeking to preserve oneself at the expense of other selves. So, this poem is at least trying to be about this idea, and about the idea that we can fear God, even we who call ourselves Christians, because of this same fear of the loss of self, the loss of the self that we have made. Anyway, I hope it takes you somewhere and makes some sort of sense.

Death’s Dying

Is it the final fall of night you truly fear,

Or do you dread the coming of the dawn?

Is death, so fleet of foot, the thing you flee,

Or is it real life from which you run

To hide yourself, a deer among the bushes?

You will drag your death behind you till you drop it,

Freeing it from the fetter your fear has made,

Its menace mastered by Immortal Love,

And given to you again in golden guise,

A winged steed to bear you far beyond

The broken beauty of grief’s dying day

Into gleaming groves of gateless, unguessed glory.

Your death must die to be reborn,

Or it will drive you on, shattered shadow though it be,

Poisoning your love and prisoning your heart

Within the walls of self-will’s narrow cell,

No way to seek your soul-deep sorrow’s source,

The loss of joy, which is its deepest spring.

But when timidity is transfigured into trust,

Your feet no longer dancing to death’s tune,

Then night becomes the doorway to the dawn,

Once-wounded wings hard-won now wonder-chased,

Finitude finally clothed in the spendless, spilling splendour

Of the very Life of life!

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