Michael Simms: Last Testaments
at dawn you’ll arrive
having thrown your luggage in the River Styx
and we’ll drink from the silver cup of day
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Postcard From The After Life
At the Saturday Pearly Balls, I conga
to the karaokes of yokels, popes, madams
& Nobels. No one wears a watch, no strike
of midnight to worry about. I’ve read all
the books & let go of the past — at last.
William Shakespeare: Sonnets 73 & 74
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Laurence Musgrove: Healing
Have you ever thought
that you weren’t healing
as fast as you thought
you should
Pascale Petit: Roebuck
Tell me there is a meadow, afterwards,
that the roebuck will come
to the top of my garden
Philip Terman: Meeting the Swami
“Throw your karma in my basket,” it said.
Lisa Zimmerman: Loft
She returns as a red-winged blackbird or maybe
all three blackbirds swinging now on the feeder
Video: Alua Arthur | Why thinking about death helps you live a better life
What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?
Louie Skipper: Every Guide
Even in death a man who sets out to find himself
has already lost his way.
George Yancy: What I Learned About Death From 7 Religious Scholars, 1 Atheist and My Father
Just a few days before my father died in 2014, I asked him a question some might find insensitive or inappropriate: “So, what are your thoughts now about dying?”
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: In the Other World
Our beloved lay down and then eloped
to that other world.
Doug Anderson: The Gravestone and the Continuing Self
When I was in my twenties I thought old age was an island only accessible by a bridge I’d never cross. But I’ve crossed it, and at seventy-eight the subject … Continue reading
Edgar Lee Masters: David Matlock
Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,
Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,
And tasting, on the way to the hive
From the clover field, the delicate spoil.
Doug Anderson: Afterlife
My old friends are pretty much the same, a little slower getting out of their chairs, but the who of them always there beneath the skin – soul? I’ve become … Continue reading
