Between Defining Shores

by Steve Cook

Death reigns as brief as the transient night,

The swift dark flutter of shadowed flight

O’er Charon’s stream between the confines caught

Of defining shores of eternal light.

‘Tis but dream that screams denial of the sun,

An illusion from some base rumour wrung,

A lie with which to fright the hearts of men

With vicious fears that pick their wits undone.

How much is viewed with awe it scant deserves

That we must take as truth’s most holy word

Some chimera, some mirage built on sand,

Sanctified with signs that say “do not disturb!”

This lie of death we cherish and abhor

And on its shallow lie set so much store,

This blink of closing eyes that grew

In the mind’s eye, ‘til it could see no more.

The moving finger etches on its mists

Life’s thread stretched thin o’er the abyss

Where light, a like eternal truth, became

A brief intrusion only on its bliss.

Our candle gutters in the wind of change

That fans its dance but can’t snuff out its flame.

Therein the fleeting shadow of our death winks in,

Winks out but cannot be sustained.

What’s death except the way we end the game

And terminate each cycle of our pain,

The sloughing of this husk of tired flesh,

The slate discarded, a blank slate started new again.

And seeking to forget what passed before,

The catalogue of guilts we now abhor,

We cling to this illusion of one life,

Just passing through, we swear there is no more.