Thursday, October 10, 2013
Death Poem I (Dorothy)
As many of you may know, a "death poem" is not always written at the actual moment of
dying. Once popular in the East, and still practiced in Japan, it can refer to a certain
summing up or reminiscence as one ponders the many events of one's life in order to see the overall themes and meanings in preparation for a final leave taking. (Or at least that is how I am thinking of it here.)
Death Poems, I
(inspired by Wendell Berry)
Now, more than ever,
you are remembering who
you really are.
Like the roots of a tree
that burrows deep
to touch the place where
its seed first grew.
Or a drop of ocean water
that returns to the heavens
to rejoin the very cloud
where it began.
Nothing you do now
can change or reshape
those happenings that arrived,
and gave you your special name.
Nothing—not the days among the aspen,
groves golden and glittering
as Shiva dancing the world alive,
nor the nights of love or weeping
for the lost presence,
can ever be erased.
Nor the moment
you escaped time
and entered, briefly,
that other realm
and were transfixed
before the inscrutable.
Now is the time
to make of yourself
a final offering
and open completely,
even before
that ultimate disclosure.
Dorothy Walters
October 8, 2013
