A Hand To Hold In A Darkened Room Poem by Pamela Ascroft

Death is not the finish line.
Beginning, middle, precipice, evolution, revolution, journey.
The goal is not to break the tape that stretches on all human horizons.
A foot race to anonymity and darkness no being strives to win.

Death touches and cannot be touched, breaks and cannot be broken;
Dashes the spent cup into the fire and explodes incendiary shards to pierce hearts.
Cold ice envelops where loss has rent the fabric of life and love.
Calculating Death. Seductive Death. God and monster and last at the feast.

But death is not the finish line.
Beyond the roar of mourners, the runner may at last rest, be revived.
What was falls away and what is exists anew, eternal-
A soul who has lifted corporeal feet from the course.

Millions still strain and push, blinkered and blinded, reared on ambition's nectar,
Trampling and stifling their fellows, themselves, to grasp at a brass ring that is by nature a fabrication, an empty idolatry.
They run ever faster towards the master they seek to evade.

But death is not the finish line.
For life is not the race.
To understand, one cannot hurry-only grow in patience.
To live, one cannot steal-only give.
To know the Universe, one cannot know. Only believe.

Death cannot be the end, for only matter can truly cease to be.
The warm traces of being held in steady arms, the tenderness of a kiss, the connection of mind to mind and heart to heart-
These are both ephemeral and permanent, like to our very skin.
These never die, for they are love-
And love is the purpose of human journey, the experience and the object…..
Love shared is eternal, and in love is immortality.