Life Everlasting

I do not know what everyone else may mean
when they speak of the afterlife, the world
to come. I have heard the stories, of course:
of paradise, of resurrection, of going into light.
I wonder how specific, how confident people
really are, noting how often they retreat into

the vagueness of the departed "looking down"
or "being in a better place." Maybe they just
don't want to trespass on anyone else's story,
each of our versions too fragile and precious
to jostle. Maybe to assert it would be to test
it, and they fear it would crumple in their hands.

I hasten to say, I do not begrudge anyone the
comfort that such a story brings. Too many live
lives of such unremitting suffering, and that there
should come an eternal repose of unburdened joy,
of freedom from pain, and want, and fear -- how
could I deny this to them, any more than a warm

blanket to the cold and shivering? I am glad they
have such a story. That is all we have, in the end.
Of course, I have been undeservedly lucky. I have
my share of stories to tie my loose ends together,
but I do not need that one. I know whatever story
we might tell about this, we tell for our own reasons;

we will not know until, each one, we find out for
ourselves. So I think of death as another country,
and as when traveling I try to hold no expectations,
preferring instead to take that adventure as it comes.
When it comes. And if there is in fact nothing more,
and only this moment has been all we ever had,

I am not troubled, holding close a deep assurance

of the Resurrection: that this is my body, to be given
for many; and I, content if it goes merely to a million
million generations of Silphidae beetles and timothy
grass and grasshoppers and moonflowers. For a
little time it was given to me to appreciate as poorly

as I have managed, and I will rejoice in the end to
give it back so that these small and precious beings
might have as well the gift of life, everlasting.