Death—keeper Of Promise—is No Thief Poem by Mohammad Younus

Death—keeper of promise—is no thief.
It steals nothing, claws at nothing,
nor snatches breath from trembling lips.
It is a giver, a tender hand
uncurling fingers to release us
from a house unfit for further stay.

The ruh, once bound in flesh,
severs only to be free—
a dancer in time's endless waltz,
a note in the infinite chorus.

The body, folded like an autumn leaf,
does not vanish into void.
Its elements return to their source—
carbon to carbon, hydrogen to hydrogen,
nitrogen, oxygen, dust to dust.
Or earth to earth, water to water,
air to air, fire to fire.
Not lost, but transformed—
a single note in the symphony of cycles.

What is lost?
A name, a face, a story in sand,
washed away by the tide of time.
But what is gained?
The silence that hums beneath all noise,
the freedom unshackled from form.
To disconnect is not to fade;
it is to bloom in vastness,
in the One that is eternal.

The river of life flows on,
carrying what was, what is, what will be.
Death is not darkness devouring light—
it is light, slipping free of its lamp.
The breaking of the lamp
does not mean the light is gone.

It is not something to lose.
It is something to gain.

—MyKoul