A poem I read recently...

What do we do about death?
We don't -
The monster is hidden away.
It's not in the zoo for the public to view
The look on its face would empty the place
We don't want to die, the people would cry
Death is the curse in the back of the hearse
We don't need to see it today.

What do we do about death?
We don't -
We shovel it under the ground
Under the sod and hope there's a God
Whose principles bend at the bitterest end
Or we burn it away, and whispering say
Death is the scream at the end of the dream
There isn't a lonelier sound.

What do we do about death?
We don't -
We don't even give it a name
He's gone before to a distant shore
She's passed away, we gloomily say,
He's fallen asleep in a terminal heap.
Death is the spear that is poisoned with fear
It pierces the heart of the game.

What do we do about death?
We don't -
But once in the angry sun
A winner was slain at the centre of pain
When a battle was fought at the final resort
But because of the cross it was fought without loss
And death is the knife that will free us for life
Because of what Jesus has done.

(from An Alien at St Wilfred's, by Adrian Plass.)