I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying

This simple proclamation, a statement of a certainty of the end... is part of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra. Antony spoke to Cleopatra while in her arms, awaiting his certain death. He died tormented by the thought of separation from his lover and not dying gloriously in the traditional Roman way. Pretty epic, but not exactly the point of this post. While Mark Antony's death is an ultimate tale of love that was never meant to be, death is the topic for today. For death is a certainty and you can never be sure when it will seek you out.

As morose as this might sound, death in itself, is nothing incredibly shocking or fearful. But it is the fear of dying in vain that has paralysed many(including myself) from this fate. What is worse than dying young, having discovered your passion, your love, only to die shortly after? Promises, talent, new found love, all disintegrate in that short moment when a person breathes their last breath. How utterly tragic and woeful for such a fate to befallen on such a promising young soul, so much enthusiasm, so much life, no time to fulfil whatever dream or ambition he/she had. Here's a little passage I wrote as I pondered about the end:

Death does not fear us,
Yet we fear Death,
We fear the broken promises,
The tear drops of grief,

We fear of shattered dreams,
Of the unborn spirit,
The ghost of the unfulfilled haunts us while we're awake,
Yet Death... does not fear us,

Forsaken all that is dear,
And cherished, and loved,
We fear yielding to the end,
We fear ending in a whimper, a sad death, a forlorn figure of destitution,
mediocrity, of the cessation of one's unenlightened mind,

To know that death is near?
Or to die without awareness of one's impending destruction,
Unrelentless, infinite, unending,
the question lingers......
When we sleep... nothing,
Yet Death... does not fear us.

Good Night

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