What Is Dying

What Is Dying

 

I am standing at the seashore. A ship

sails to the morning breeze and starts for

the ocean. She is an object of beauty

and I stand watching her till at last she

fades on the horizon, and someone at my

side says, “She is gone.” Gone Where?

Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just

as large in mast and hull and spar as she

was when I saw her, and just as able to

bear her load of living freight to its

destination.

The diminished size and total loss of sight

is in me, not in her; and just at the mo-

ment when someone at my side says,

“She is gone,” there are others who are

watching her coming, and other voices

take up the glad shout, “There she

comes!” – and that is dying.

—Bishop Brent

(Ed. Note:  This lovely poem was distributed at the recent memorial service for Marie Dwyer Bullock.)