Seneca Ponders Death
The dead inside the tomb is laid,
the final rites are brought to close,
the eyes no more behold the day,
now shut in endless night's repose.
Thus falls the end of endless might,
thus ends the tally of the tale.
What worth is it to leave the light
when on the threshold life will fail,
if yet unfailing strife we keep
and no surcease from life receive,
no warming poultice born of sleep,
and nothing left when flesh we leave?
When body to a corpse has turned
and spirit flees its living role,
is soul by life then also spurned
dissolving like our breath the soul?
What morning sunlight, morrow's morn,
will shatter sky in reddening dawn,
what sunset scatter drops forlorn
on all that Ocean holds in bond?
It all will, like the sons of Time,
be snatched and eaten straight away.
Too swiftly course the stars sublime,
too swiftly moon will flee the day,
too swiftly spring to winter tends,
as all things hurry on the track;
but swifter far than to these ends
will race our hearts to loss and lack.
When we are laid in fatal tomb,
perhaps no shade will be our doom?
Like smoke that curls from smoldered coal,
like cloud before the forceful wind,
our body's life will upward roll
and pass, and fade, and come to end.
Shall then we quiver for our fate?
Shall then we flee with fleeing breath?
Not once will fear our lot abate,
not once will worry stave off death.
But reason, still, and calm, and pure,
may rise in might, unharmed by wave,
and see for fear the flawless cure:
all fear is buried in the grave.
Inside our minds we cities build
of torment, shade, Tartarus-hell;
but these are rumors fear has filled,
all stories that our passions tell.
Who of our spirit's fate is sure?
Ask those who never lived nor were.
When we are laid in fatal tomb,
perhaps no shade will be our doom?
The One
Dividing possibilities: this is the mind.
Dividing perfectly, the One it will find.
Breaking the world, thought learns all things.
All being broken, the One it will find.
Eye loving beauty, the world is in hues.
Eye looking closer, the One it will find.
Look in your heart, unveil many things;
Mirror your heart, the One it will find.
Those who are lost will walk many ways,
wander unknowing. The One, it will find.
Maundy Thursday 2013
As we are here in flurry waiting
King who will bring victory,
our God another course is fating
through the road to Calvary.
Hail the hero overcoming
things beyond our minds to know,
not through beat of martial drumming,
walls that crash like Jericho,
but only gift, like servant lowly,
stooping down to wash the feet,
or man made sacrifice most holy
who, dying, will our death defeat!
