Death Would not Stop

Prayer for the Dying
Meditation on the Living

 

Oh power behind the veil, to whom in hours

of need and grateful moments the hearts of all

pray, mitigate our suffering, we who

are born but to die, we whose pain is constant

whose pleasures fleeting—such wonders this life

we are blessed to know, or at least experience

and though death must, in its inevitable journey

find us—we would delay it . . .

but that is not our request, we but desire a little more

life, laughter, pleasure, rest a little more

respite from doubt, a lot more comfort from pain

 

will you not bequeath us this: one lucid hour

painless transition on our day to pass in peace

from this world, into which we screaming made

our ungloried advent, and scratching made our way

 

can you not in final weeks offer sweet repose

then make such moments as we have with loved ones carry

us on blossoms across that dim transition

to the undiscovered country and seed hope

where peace not grows, that once apart

those who remain hold within sorrowed grief

that eternal thing—that forsake-me-not

within their souls to pad that space which death

steals blind and voids with endless night.

 

Remind us when loved ones live that life’s value

is self-evident; no vault can store its greatest

treasure in the moment of love: love in the hour

of pain: memory of affection in days of grief:

hope and the right to grieve; the freedom to shed tears

with no thought of rightness or propriety,

for moot are the civilities of the living, of the dying

in the heart of those bereaved forbid it that we

should disgrace each other and this gift of life

in thoughtless acts of intolerance to expression of pain

and loss, and let us instead commune in universal

brotherhood; the dying and the dead give us the grace

to be as we are—to do as we need

and voice the dark terror and pain of grief

until it goes silent and leaves its void,

that darkest hell—whence hope can spring again.

David M Pitchford

Rev. 30 October 2008