This post first appeared on Kineti and is authored by Judah Gabriel Himango, one of Tabernacle of David’s teachers.
The dead do not live on in our memories
Who would be satisfied
Their existence reduced
To a passing thought
A fleeting memory?
The dead in heaven are not needed by God
If Almighty should have want
Of anything at all
He is neither All
Nor Mighty
The dead were not by God called home
Even a wicked father
Does not bereave siblings
With tragedy and violent suffering
To summon the one
The dead do not become as stardust
Will the dust give praise to You, Lord?
“To dust you shall return”
Is the cause, not consolation
Of my grief
The dead do not float with cherubim above
For our essence is beyond mere disembodied soul
Flesh and bones we were fashioned
Earth is where the Divine settled us
And thus our true home
There is nothing good in death
Nothing
No reason
No comprehensible meaning
Even should there be
It would not console me
Because it would not return the dead to me
There is no consolation but this:
“I will swallow up death forever
And wipe away every tear from their eyes”
Until then I will grieve for my brother
Bitterly taken in youth
A beautiful branch broken
Violently ripped from the tree
He is gone and not coming home
And only our tears remain
