It is a virtue of the living

It is a virtue of the living

To think on how to die

But never more to linger

Than just long enough

To touch the truth of losing

All we know

The fear of what might lie

Beyond the boundary of creation.

Before we were birthed,

After we have gone,

Forever unknown concepts,

Much as reincarnation

Was a dream of Shelley

In the shadow of Prometheus

Dry bones lie in charnel houses

Carried off by stick-thin greys

In plague masks

Walking with black horses

Brightly plumed

Pulling ancient wagons

Through the darkness

At the edge of things

Until the end of time.

When poets meet religion

All they do is cater for the living

Nothing real is brokered

For the newly dead

Nevermore to ponder

Or remember yesterday

To think upon the future

As something never gone

When everything is counted

What might be lacking

Is no more lost than

All is ever gained

As nothing is as nothing does

With never more attained.