When I Think of Death
By Maya Angelou
When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with
alarming frequency, I seem at peace with the idea that a day
will dawn when I will no longer be among the living in this
valley of strange humors.
I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to
accept the death of anyone else.
I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that
country of no return.
Disbelief becomes my close companion and anger follows in
its wake-
I answer the heroic question ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with
‘it is here in my heart and mind and memories.’
I love the idea that we are supposed to feel everything and that no feeling is final. This reminds me of William Blake, "The deeper the sorrow, the greater the joy."
Go to the Limits of Your Longing Written by Rainer Maria Rilke Translated and read by Joanna Macy
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. Book of Hours, I 59
Something has spoken to me in the night... and told me
I shall die, I know not where. Saying
"(Death is) to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing;
to lose the life you have, for greater life;
to leave the friends you have loved, for greater loving;
to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth."
Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again