For S--- A-------

A friend died late last night, and we didn't find out until this morning. Conversation about this woman's energy reminded me of these lines from section six of Whitman's "Song of Myself" (in Leaves of Grass):


. . . The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life and doest not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.