W.S. Merwin: For the Anniversary of My Death
15 March 2023
Elegy
Who would I show it to
—W.S. Merwin (1927–2019)
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-final-prophecy-of-w-s-merwin
James Joyce on Truth
15 March 2023
Truth deals largely with us.
—James Joyce (1882–1941), "The Day of the Rabblement" (1901)
He is now in the way of Truth.
Tha e nis air slighe na fùinne.
(Gaelic proverb. He is dying.)
He is now on the sod of truth.
Tha e nis air fòid na fìrinne.
(He is dead.)
Photo by Mark Hillary.
Thoreau on his deathbed
15 March 2023
Then I spoke only once more to him....I think my question was substantially this: "You seem so near the brink of the dark river, that I almost wonder how the opposite shore may appear to you?" He then answered: "One world at a time."
—Parker Pillsbury (1809–1898) of Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). Quoted in F.B. Sanborn, The Personality of Thoreau (1901)
Chekhov: The profit of death is enormous
23 September 2022
Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
—Chekhov, Rothschild’s Fiddle (1894), translated by Constance Garnett
не надо ни есть, ни пить, ни платить податей, ни обижать людей, а так как человек лежит в могилке не один год, а сотни, тысячи лет, то, если сосчитать, польза окажется громадная.
Jessica Morris: I am set on another path where they cannot follow me
23 September 2022
The worst part of it is the feeling of loneliness. For these past almost five years I have been on a journey with my loved ones and friends around me. It’s as though we have been through the wars together, holding tight to one another. Now, with my time running short, I am being prised away from those I love and set on another path where they cannot follow me. I am on my own.
—Jessica Morris in her memoir of her illness, All in My Head. She died on 8 June 2021 of glioblastoma.
Image by Chris Ford on Flickr
David Eagleman: There are three deaths
23 September 2022
There are three deaths: the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
—David Eagleman, Stanford neuroscientist, in Sum (2011)
Nigel Barley: Cameroon youth on what happens when you die
23 September 2022
“What happens to a man’s powers/soul/spirit after he dies?” I tried querulously, like a vicar hoping to get a current affairs discussion going at a youth club. They ignored me. Then one young man turned round and snapped, “How should I know? Am I God?”
—Nigel Barley in The Innocent Anthropologist, describing a conversation with locals in Cameroon
Cited by Stephen Jones
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Photo by Bill Adams
Photo by Bill Adams
Michael Rosen: I broke the rule that said I had to stay in the Land of the Dead
18 May 2022
...I'm a traveller
who reached
the Land of the Dead.
I broke the rule that said I had to stay.
I crossed back over the water.
I dodged the guard dog,
I came out.
I've returned.
I wander about.
I left some things down there....
—Michael Rosen (1946–), beloved British children's book writer and illustrator, who survived being on a ventilator with COVID in April and May 2020. In the Guardian, 13 March 2021. The poem is from his book Many Different Kinds of Love: A story of life, death and the NHS
Nas: Life's a b&*^h
28 November 2021
Life's a bitch, but God forbid that bitch divorce me.
—Nas
Wen Tianxiang: Since ancient times, who has not died?
29 April 2021
Since ancient times, who has not died?
Let me keep a loyal heart to shine from the pages of history.
—Wen Tianxiang (1236–1282) 文天祥, "Crossing the sea of Lingding" 過零丁洋. Wen is still known as a patriotic hero for his resistance to the Mongol invasion of China.
人生自古誰無死
留取丹心昭汗青