Garry feels I’m getting very thematic and he’s right. It isn’t accidental. I’ve been conjuring images from our cemetery. Not every drawing is brilliant, but they are definitely a series. My favorite character is Death in Terry Pratchett’s wonderful, brilliant, amazing series, Discworld. It is funny, witty, thoughtful and I think I’ve read the entire series three times — and there are more than 40 books. Each time I read them, I feel like I have learned something.

I also have always loved this poem. Without getting deeply involved in religious thought, thought there is much in here to ponder, there is a tsunami of truth in this sonnet.

Death, be not proud

BY JOHN DONNE

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Categories: #Sketchbook, Arts, Death and Dying, Drawings, poem, Poetry

Tags: #Sketchbook, art, death, Drawings, John Donne, Marilyn Armstrong