Death is a wisp of cold...

Death is a wisp of cold
Death is a giant gasp, steady
I still mistake your preserved corpse for my own over-lived daydreams
I still have not seen the honesty in your stillness, the rest in your lay •

The shell of our bodies is left behind to deteriorate. And we who are left behind have only the glances at these shells to console us. Until they are turned to ash. Or buried deep beneath us. Never to be seen again.

And although the spirit lives on, it was our connections with these bodies which grounded us. And so we say goodbye, for now or for eternity. We may never really find out which.

And it is his body which I miss now. Images are only remnants and do not provide much solace. Thus, this is the complication of humanity - short lives placed in mortality, and a death which never ends. None of us can escape it. And none of us want anything to do with it. But life goes on. And so does eternity.

Love with all that you have now with those whom you have now. We all guess, have faith, and believe, but none of us truly knows what happens afterward.
Live for today, not tomorrow. •

Poem from Four Years in Chrysalis
© Aisha Tariqa Abdul Haqq Publishing
Follow @AishaTariqa for more daily poetry •