The Joy of Death (Challenge Poem)

The Joy of Death Settled for an evening’s rest With head in deep of pillow’s nest I lay with bones still wrapped in ache And eyes just barely in awake An iridescence came to land Upon the smoothness of my hand A moonbeam streaming through the glass Gave room and walls an icy cast It pulled me up from soft repose And with the beam I gently rose It lifted me through evening’s balm Toward places of celestial calm To stars’ and suns’ most distant space We traveled at a moonbeam’s pace And all the heavens would come to know My face in opalescent glow The stars then took me in embrace And wrote the truth upon my face Of all that is, and all that was Of every why, and its because Contentment’s portal I had passed And saw the joy of heaven at last No one announced if this my stay Was marked by fate for such a day I felt somehow that I could choose The brown of earth or heaven’s blues Then in the darkness of the night I traveled home on moonbeam’s light And through a window of despair I saw my family crying there On comfort’s bed in shadows deep I lay there silently asleep The cry of death was in the room A garden’s worth of floral bloom I knew that I had soon to leave But not in echoes that they grieve Then in the midst of sorrow’s loom I heard a song enchant the room It was a poem from my own pen That brought my loved ones peace again It said “I’m well, my soul is free Grieve for yourselves, but not for me For I am in a lovely world Where all God's beauty has unfurled We will never be apart I’ll dwell forever in your heart God placed a lovely flower bed A garden where I lay my head To be with you, my flowers divine Weep for your heart, but not for mine” Then I departed through God’s space Toward heaven, at a moonbeam’s pace And there, a garden of my own Among the seeds that I had sewn Written March 5th, 2002 © on Mar 05 2002 12:51 AM PST   0 • 10