Afterword

There are two well-trod roads to the afterlife:
one, a tunnel of light;
the other through a forest border.

The first is almost blindingly pure;
the way to a world in which
we become as a shape burnt on a retina:
a silhouette, of a hue so vivid –
ringing clear, yet hard to name
(we don't have waking rubrics for the things
we can only see with our eyes closed).

The other route,
the way of moss and stone and green needle,
was Dante's way and Blake's.
At the border of 'now' and 'never'
ancient trees stand unwhispering
amid the smells of birds and insects,
and scampering things that scampereth.
These are creatures half-wild, half-eternal.
They have been here since before forever
awaiting, indifferently,
our stumbling shoe-shod exit.