Commentary and Philosophy Poetry posted November 12, 2024


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Our perception of the dead

The Dead

by estory

In the dead of winter
We seem to hear the dead
Whisper of what is no longer here;
The lives they lived,
The places in which they stood.
 
In these shadows they seem to speak
In parables and paradoxes
Of mysteries of life
That evaporate into thin air.
 
What happens when one dies?
What does one see?
What does one hear?
Or do we become like the trees
Standing still while the earth moves
Around us, hardening into silence?
 
In the stones in the streams
We seem to see the dead
Standing still, while the spirit
That was inside of them
Flows on beyond us,
Into something else.
 
The dead are no longer here.
Whatever was alive in them is gone.
It is we who keep remembering them
As they were when they were with us,
It is we who keep kneeling at the cold stone.



Recognized


This is another poem I wrote around the time my father passed away and questions about death and the promise of the resurrection leapt to the forefront of my mind. I wrote a short story about this too, called Door into the Dark. Death really is the door into the dark; we really don't know what happens when we die. Our perception of the dead is born from our interaction with them while they lived. It is like a stone in a stream. The dead are now in that stream, moving on. To hold onto what is no longer here brings to mind one of Christ's sayings: "Let the dead bury their dead. As for you, seek the kingdom of God." and "The one who believes in me will live, even thought they die; and the one who lives his life believing in me will never die." estory
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