Friday, July 4, 2008

The Triumph of Death

THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH

No longer mourn for me when I am gone
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world, that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms do dwell;

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O! If, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But, let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

W. SHAKESPEARE

This has been a long time in coming, as much as I have wanted to write on the platform of the internet, admittedly I have never had the patience to actually do so and I must say its admirable the way bloggers expound their passion for the medium. Maybe it was a knock-out blow dealt by a recent bout with chickenpox that found in me the time to look within and without, ponder and reminiscent into this that you read…

It may be the early confrontation I have had with death in my life that leaves me with so many questions , yet they cannot be avoided, like a river churning in your heart, ready to explode in any moment of silence into tears …that must be put out there…not able to contain anymore…

“Did death begin my life?...Why my life? Only mine?...Why her?!....

It is ironic that my first blog be about death, death is associated with ending, degeneration, collapse…yet does it have to mean this? Why is it called one of the greatest mysteries of life? If the answers were ready dear reader, we would be on a different paranormal plane…the closest I have come to understanding some of it has been in reading “Life after death – The burden of proof” by Deepak Chopra, an author who inspirationally combines ancient tradition wisdom with path breaking scientific explanations to answer many of life’s searching questions.

“Whatever it is that occurs at death, I believe it deserves to be called a miracle,” he explains. “The miracle, ironically, is that we don’t die.”

And life’s ultimate purpose, he adds, “is to discover who you are. After death, we see more clearly the goals to be attained.

Chopra sees the soul as a process, not a thing: “It is a continuum. It is a dynamic, constantly evolving bundle of consciousness.”

He concludes: “The human spirit is degraded when we confine ourselves to the span of a lifetime and the enclosure of a physical body. We are mind and spirit first, and that places our home beyond the stars.”

One may wonder at why I am smitten by such a terrible fellow as Yama, the Lord of death, but isn’t it part of life just like genesis and growth?...it may be the inability to grow out of an early fateful incident, it may be a continuous state of mourning that I am not able to break away from?..it may be all of it.

So, despite Shakespeare’s best of advise in the poem “The Triumph of Death”;
(“…Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But, let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone...”)

She is a part of me not in this world but beyond and though I am told to forget, how can I, for Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose…and we may not share days together anymore, but the special moments that we shared will last forever… one a friend, one more than a friend, their lose in me, nothing will ever mend.

She strides on,
Drifting left, to right,
Always fumbling, always crumbling,
Away from disapproval.
She strides on,
Backing up, dashing forward,
Nearly losing, nearly dying,
Away from destruction.
She strides on,
Lifting high, digging deep,
Maybe seeing, maybe living,
Away from uncertainty.
She strides on,
Never returning, never stopping,
Away to a better place.