This is Episode 95 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "On the Death of the Beloved" by John O'Donohue.

John O’Donohue was an Irish poet and Celtic spiritual teacher and leader whose death at the age of just 52 in 2008 is still much mourned by his legions of admirers and students.

His brother Pat, reflecting on his life, said:

"He was not a finite act that existed and is now lost for evermore. He is just a story that is written, spoken and lives amongst us. Just as we are and continue to be."

As he is mourned, O’Donohue in this poem gives all who will ever mourn—which is, of course, all of us—a passport to a way through that mourning, embracing it for what it is and what it means, telling us in a way that death is life as much as life is life, and our mature reflection on that, our bonded relationship with it, deepens the meaning both of the time we’re here and the time after.

You can find another poem by John O’Donohue, "Beannacht", in Episode 17 of this podcast here.

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