The Life of Death by Dan Brook



The Life of Death


Sitting shivah and honoring Shiva
In awe of both life and death
Contemplating creation
and despairing destruction
As we come face to face
with the transition between them
We experience
A cacophonous colliding of worlds
As the death of life
Begins the life of death

Maternity wards and morgues
For grandmothers, mothers, and us
Our parents and our parents’ parents
Their children and their children’s children

The blessing and the passing
Celebrating life while mourning death
Like refugees from reason, from rationality,  from Nature, and from each other
We straddle emotional states
Ill at ease with ourselves
While alienated from others
Unable to adequately translate our experience

As the Talmud and Quran remind us
The end of a life is the destruction of a world
Even as it continues
The great cosmic cycle of Being
As the Bhagavad Gita reminds us

We cry, we pause, we grieve, we wonder
Ultimately we remember and celebrate
For love is always stronger than death
May all our memories be for many blessings


About The Author 

Dan Brook, PhD teaches in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University in Silicon Valley, from where he organizes the annual Hands on Thailand (HoT) program.

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