New Year Comfort

If your thoughts turn to death, as can happen at the start of a new year, I have recently found the words of Walt Whitman to be of enormous comfort:

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward ... and nothing collapses,

And to die is differnt from what anyone supposed, and is luckier.

Those words are from Leaves of Grass (Song of Myself).

Old Walt has that peculiar shining insight that is the gift of true depressives. He struggled a lot with life and so you can believe his fervour when he finds things to celebrate and be hopeful and thankful for.

Happy New Year 2010.

May we all find light and fervour in the most unexpected of places.