Death and Transfiguration
There is a way of death,
A way of narcissistic self-idolatry
That positions self as the All,
But which leads to the Naught.
It is the way of self-love,
It heeds not the maxim,
That to love life is to lose it,
But to hate world-life
Is to save it in eternity.
Death then yields to transfiguration,
Now we shall see him as he is,
And like him we shall be,
Clad in raiment whiter than snow,
Covered by a cloud.
A cloud, dense, solid, and smooth,
Like a diamond smitten by the sun,
An eternal pearl receiving us into itself,
As water receives a ray of unbroken light.
We gaze into the starry heavens,
Filled with a vast sinuous
Light-mist rose and gold colored,
And there in that glory
Stands the city in which
The world’s life is secured forever.
Copyright © 2012 by J. Prescott Johnson