An unexpected death the other day reverberated through our community and through my family. The deceased was a former coach of my son, a stalwart pillar of the community who had served as a coach and school board member for decades, and someone who I had been working with on a campaign for his local council seat.

Sudden deaths are the worst because of all the ends that are left frayed and loose. Like everyone else, it’s happened to me before. For my son, however, this was the first time he had ever lost someone who played such a big role in his life in such an abrupt fashion. As I sat with him to talk about it he told me that “I just wish I could talk to him one more time”.

I read Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night at my grandfather’s funeral at the behest of my father. That poem was the subject of a previous poetry monday, back when it was still being sent back and forth via email. Today I want to share Dylan Thomas’ other “death” poem,  And Death Shall Have No Dominion. I’ve always found this poem to be a bit more impersonal and a bit sharper than *Do Not Go Gentle. *And maybe a bit more depressing overall.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.