The Crossing Part Two Poem by Daniel Brick
The Crossing Part Two
Death keeps droning on,
as people dutifully prepare
to enter what we only know as
the Dark Realm, the Underground,
the Place of Nowhere. Death himself
knows nothing, he is a braggart
puffed up with false importance.
He is just a little thing between
two immensities, Life and After-
Life. He is a little hinge
which snaps and separates
the two - forever. Death knows
nothing of Before or After.
I am just a visitor, not one
of the Appointed for this
Crossing. But he said so little
of help to these people milling
about in confusion, I will speak
what he left out:
This is the point of the Crossing.
The thundering you hear within
are the Rivers of Eternity
rolling the currents of Time
at the edge of Eternity. Soon
your hearing will be assaulted
by a vast Silence within and without.
Do not fear this Silence: it is
the companion of the Light which even
now is slowly enveloping you in fold
upon fold of Illumination. When your
Crossing is complete, there will be no
Inner and Outer, no Before and After,
no Us and Them. All will be All...
Can you feel it? The Crossing?
The Freshness around you, gently closing
upon you. Remember this: Do not drink
if the first fountain you encounter.
Cultivate thirst. Do not drink of
the second fountain, however enticing.
Think instead of drinking the Light,
then let it lift you, and take you
where it will. What happens next -
nothing or everything! We will Know
what is there to be grasped, or
we will know in the tiniest moment,
on the split of a split whether or
not Time, Knowledge, Being are real
or illusions, in that finality
we will Be or Not Be, and it is enough.
hey, daniel! i had to mull on these poems, parts one and two, because at the end of this one it seemed you were making assertions- at least that's how i took the closing lines on the first read. now that i've read it a second and third time, i'm less persuaded that way. me, i wonder about death sometimes but not a lot. if you're interested see my poems different with God and the blue door. i mentioned to you i've been reading wm kent krueger crime fiction novels. in the books that follow the life of his hero cork o'connor, i've encountered the idea of passing as the path of souls, which i gather is the ojibwe understanding. i like that phrase. the beginning of part two summons, as you might expect, donne's death be not proud sonnet. thanks for these poems with subject matter worthy of our time and attention. glen
This was the last of three poems I see as interelated, it was the hardest to bring to some sort of closure. It's drawn from my prose comments on the P. Levine's CALL IT MUSIC. The division into two parts was NOT meant to be. I had a problem with Poemhunter. But that moment in the poem is an awkward transition. from the subject of mental figures to death. I will revise. But right now those 3 poems and 3 birthdays poems and my continuing AGE OF STOCKHAUSEN poems have stretched me imaginatively. I want to vacation in Blake's Beulah Land, or Yeats's Innisfree, or along my beloved Mississippi River Parkway.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/26/2024 3:42:19 AM # 1.0.0.1119
So now in part two, the speaker has imagined the process of death of crossing over. There are some comparisons and images that make one think of mythology. The speaker here seems to know more than we do. He is frustrated by Death's lack of support in the crossing and tries to supplement with some tips: Don't drink in the water...wait to drink in the life. Soon we will all be one, nothing and everything. On the split of a split, and the Shakespeare reference, and this life, this death, this crossing, it is all enough. The End. Thanks for sharing Daniel.