Contributed by Maxine Franklin

Dear people and animals that without

Reservation deserve to live

Forever but nevertheless have passed into oblivion.

Over the course of life on earth,

This has occurred

Countless times.

Thus our hope of an eternity - an endless pause in time's relentless passage

That would spare all of us - a living

Suspension of cruel physical laws.

Can we change

Definitions to make these less inexorable?

Can we allow a suspension, a long endless eternal

Day with no night in sight?

Where flowers bloom without

Fading. Where the kitten plays in an endless summer?

Where my love and I hold sunset

And moonrise in our smooth hands?

Our joy

Slowly witnessing the gentian opening?

Endlessly blooming?