This poem is part faith,part existential - Sartre meets Tagore...It is about what comes after, but this remains mystery, so it is entitled: The Afterdeath

The poem can speak to comfort in dying, whether agnostic or believer. It can also speak to the way of die before you die in the Sufi or gnostic traditions, comparable to englightenment in the Eastern traditions. It can speak to recovery from depression or grief without avoiding the darkness but instead relying on it to give way to light.

The Afterdeath
In the void
the last ashes of the funeral pire
thrown upon the sea
no ears, no sound no wind,
nor tears, nor sigh
no feet to walk nor hand to wave
no land below, nor sky above
no brain, no gut
eyes open, eyes shut
no difference between these

finding oneself in the black and endless night
walk on, no choice
listening created sound
wind created breath
crying in our loneliness, we made a river
no hand built the bridge
no footprints on a path remain and before the rain
we made the river crossing on the dry bed of our solitude
in the waves of sadness at your parting or mine

we thought we were gone forever into darkness
but now we find ourselves at the edge of dawn
eyes open, eyes shut
this indifference gives way to inevitability of the arrival of light
in the same way the morning sun kills the night
we used to chase its sweetness east and west, never satisfied
our noblest intentions, and our desires led to nothing
only when we died of exhaustion from this striving
exertion and pride could we remain still long enough
to allow its gentleness to come
dying tonight
gently going
to wherever mornings are born