Thinking of an Afterlife

When was the beginning,
in the fertilising, in the flower,
or was it deeper,
in the earth beneath?
No end of wonderment
shall cease such a quest,
or know how it is unknowable.
We gaze on our cosmos in the cusp of a bloom,
to glimpse the mysterious, grasp at reality,
surrender a dearth of finality to find
our earthly world has nothing behind,
is all that there is
with nothing defined
but Being and believing
in finality of flower
and durability of Youth.
And that is the truth.

Time is upon us and we descry
the mortality bequeathed by our parent dead,
instead a wry but temporal frailty debases
in fragile strands, uniting tumultuous past
to petulant future, and we stand
before the tempest of noon
knowing how with surety as those who have seen it
our fate is soon and we shall wilt into the afterlife
our successors allow.
And when they smile in passing
and think of us with affection,
why then, yes then,
there shall be life everlasting.
© I.D. Carswell