POEMS OF DEATH: TIME FOR ETERNITY
The Title "Poems of Death" comes from a passage in Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas, in which he wrote:
"In the future of these States, must arise poets immenser far, and make great poems of death."
Whitman was actually referring not to death itself, but to a new sense and vision of life that he hoped would arise and permeate the entirety of life in America. This vision of life embodied a sense of the eternal. It was a spiritual and religious awakening he hoped for - an awakening which he knew was fundamental to bringing forth the true potential and dream of America.
The poems he dreamed of were actually to be written by the lives of ordinary men and women, who would express a vision of eternity in the here and now as they lived out their lives and dreams amid everyday circumstances - bringing to fruition a great new Dream of America.
In these fifty-seven short pieces, James Hilgendorf offers lovely fragments of this new world emerging in all of our hearts.
From "Poems of Death: Time for Eternity":
The Secret Door
"To live eighty or ninety years; to have been rich; to have found love; to have traveled to the ends of the earth; to have been the president of a big company; to have been a professor of this or that; to have played golf whenever you wished in your retirement; to have been a great sports hero; to have been a beautiful woman; to have eaten delicious food every day of your life; to have won the lottery; to have invented a better computer; to have been a philanthropist; to have taken vacations wherever and whenever you wanted; to have been lucky in your health; to have lived in the most beautiful places; to have owned a beautiful home - any of these, and infinitely more desires fulfilled and goals won were nothing at the end of the day, at the end of your allotted time, if you had not found the secret door, the way into another dimension, as you stood with your two feet on the ground and the spring air soft about your head, and the rain and thunder and lightning and rainbows and people everywhere and failed to notice that where you stood and who you were was eternity."
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James Hilgendorf is the author of ten books. He is also the producer of The Tribute Series, a highly-acclaimed series of travel films and documentaries. The author is a 40-year practicing member with the SGI, or Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist lay organization of 12,000,000 members in 192 countries and territories, working for world peace and the individual happiness and friendship of all peoples.
All of his books are available through bookstores, or in paperback or e-book form through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, and other online retailers.
