WE CAN'T LEAVE OUR LIVES BEHIND WHEN WE DIE

"It's not that you're leaving, it's that you — that you stayed."

John McCain

After we have gone, it doesn't matter

that we once stayed,

because the knowledge we stayed

departs with us

and is no more.

We think the world will remain,

all that we did within it,

and the memory of our deeds and life.

But the world wipes its slate clean,

and is but an ephemeral phantom

in the greater void.