Not Fade Away

Will there be a bright light

Or just a slowly fading into grey

An awakening into consciousness

Or a drift into nothing, a going away

Like a light switched off 

A final dreamless endless sleep.

A natural ending.

But you takes your choice,

The finality of the atheist,

Or the believer’s joyful voice.

The inevitable end

We all have to face.

I just hope to go 

With dignity and grace.

I hope the resurrectionist

Have got it right

But really my belief is 

Endless unconscious night,

Finished,

Gone,

And so the world 

Moves inexorably on.

Maybe finally surviving atoms

Wander and drift near and far

To be incorpoated in

The birth of a new star

And in some wondrous way

Far beyond any man’s ken

What was dead

May come back to life again.