The Denial of Death in Shenandoah National Park
Cold air, barred owls, and the smell of smoke:
Only a little data here, to evoke
The August woods off the balcony.
Woods that always prompt philosophy.
As when I read, in Becker, a phrase like
“Immunity bath,’ meaning cultic rites
That cleanse the cultist of the dread of death
(Page 12) and sometimes even of its sight.
Or anti-vaxers who, with dying breath,
Admit they thought their breath would never end.
“Consciousness of death is the primary
Repression, not sexuality.” Mend
Your dread by bacchanal, or by fairy
Story, and you’ll still get badly scarred.
A death-accepter, say Kierkegaard,
Knows this is merely where the fun begins:
The wisest owls unbarred spin and spin
Out of smoke mythic immortality.
Take, among those I love, N., P., and D.
N. strode in to save Detroit, then broke down
At the vastness of it. P. circles round
The earth’s atrocities, repairing souls.
D., who must perceive the very world, stole
His life through abstraction. Hard led
By dread, N. is struggling, D. dead.
From the balcony again the smell of smoke —
Of our own ashy end an easy token.