Three Refuges in Dying

[child_of_the_air]

I'm doing fairly well at the moment, but I had a very bad mental health weekend last weekend, and haven't really been being the sanest lately, largely due to stress.  Largely as a consequence of this, I wrote my first poem in quite a while that isn't a hymn, though it is arguably still religious.  (A friend suggested to me that it's in fact very Aeonist, though I haven't managed to check with Ruthanna Emrys to see what she thinks.)  In any case, it's a poem about my thoughts about death.

 

"Three Refuges in Dying"
16th April 2019

I take refuge in my dying:
     The mind and body both must fall and fail,
     must come apart and become senseless things.
     The pains and wants and fears of mortal life
     will pass away, and suff'ring be no more.

I take refuge in the Ocean:
     All ash and dust, all clay and rock will soon
     erode and return to a common sea.
     The sins that even blood may not redeem
     will wash away in that eternal brine.

I take refuge in the Heat Death:
     The final chaos that consumes all things
     will bring an end to life and memory.
     And so I know, whatever pain I feel,
     I need not fear eternal calumny.