Untitled poem from a new poet...

[alatos]

alatos. You say that you are trying to reconcile two common conceptions of death: the religious; we get to meet god after death, and the nonreligious; there is nothing after death, we just lose our consciousness. I see where you have attempted to do this:

I may fade into nothing, absolutely nothing.

In which case, I am dissolved into that first source,...

So if your speaker has faded into nothing, in which case you have dissolved (synonymous to faded) into that first source (the same as 'that unmoved mover', 'the very grounds of existence', 'the everlasting', 'abba', 'the origin' or simply, God), then you are really just saying God=nothing. And I'm not sure whether many religious nor nonreligious people would agree with this.

If you are not referring to God, then I don't see how you're dealing with the religious conception of death. If you are referring to God, then your 'unification' is just a product of poor logic.

Hope you found this post helpful.

-Rachel

This poem is supposed to present two different possibilities. I am not saying they are the same.

The first half of the poem is, I think quite obviously, referring to union with God, or some divine origin, in some way or another. This will mark the end of all suffering.

The second half is suggesting that, literally, we are dissolved into the universe. WE, as in our consciousness, is dead forever. But our physical bodies are surrendered back to their original source, the universe. As our consciousness is eliminated, so is our suffering. This is why the adjectives that originally were capitalized, signifying divinity, are now lower cased.

Both of these possibilities produce an end to suffering. That is how they are supposed to unify.

I am in no way suggesting that God is nothing. I truly don't believe that I used any flawed logic. I hope this made the poem a little clearer.