Modern society doesn't like to think too much about death, and yet we must, especially when events overtake us and affect us as the recent deaths in Afghanistan. Truly tragic. Your poem speaks well to what the final breath might mean.

The way I have wakened up lately, like death warmed over, I'm beginning to think that it might be like our dreams. And I dread that because while most of my dreams tend to be far out crazy like dreaming a poem and then being unable to write it. But because most of my dreams become circular like a computer loop and with each iteration deteriorate into the horrors one might consider purgatory.

You're right in your supposition that we have no way of knowing. So why do we spend so much time planning for it? Worrying over it? I'm not at all concerned. For me it will just be, "lights out."

My concern is this side of that barrier. I'm deathly afraid of ending up in the hospital with tubes from a ventilator jammed down my throat as some sort of torture to either prolong my misery or prolong it to the end anyway. Wouldn't it be better to just let the last breath be free?

Ron

Imagination can be a marvelous gift. "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." Albert Einstein... We become what we think. All we are arises in our thoughts. With what we think or believe we create our own gardens or prisons. For some... what they choose to believe fertilizes the imagination. For others.... well, not so much. They end up trapped on a merry-go-round. The final breath is a doorway that you can't come back through. So making the right decision on this side is crucially important to where that doorway will lead you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Always appreciated. rlc