Do not grieve when death comes.
Know only joy.
No one, no thing is lost.
Change is the surge of life.
Birth and death are one.
End is beginning, beginning end.
Night shades into day,
Day to night,
Beyond all horizons of the mind.
Intellect is not the compass.
Only joy can take you there.
When death comes, rejoice!
Sing out hosannas that the tide is in,
Gathering up its own to the breast of the sea.
When death comes
Bathe in its baptismal power
Its antiseptic beauty, clean of guilt.
Warm yourself deeply
In the presence of the universal
For what is man, in all his vast intelligence,
But a small sandcrab on the beach of time?
Be glad, be glad!
Sand and sea go on and on and on and on
Ever into eternity.
Copyright © 1973 by Doris N. Sutton
