Astrid

“What do you think has become of the young and old
men?
And what do you think has become of the women
and children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does
not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward.... and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
and luckier.
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to
die, and I
know it.
I pass death with the dying, and birth with the newwashed
babe.... and am not contained between my hat and
boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and
every one good,
The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts
all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as
immortal and
fathomless as myself;
They do not know how immortal, but I know.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass