Loss and gain

I am giving up this world, for another.
That which was sensuous and calm
Is now hectic and
all the senses are in the mind's eye
catatonic yet hyperactive
brimming with life and teeming with death
life after life after life
unending and ever-different
tranquil, fishing in a clear stream,
raging in the midst of battle,
horn blowing and shattered shields across the plains.
Never was such a place trodden by a live man.
I am not giving up this world because it is stale, bland and colourless, no.
I am rather joining this other, ethereal one,
because life there has a meaning, and an end, as clear-cut
as a flawless ruby and as vaporous as the mist,
because brotherhood makes us braver, and more content.
Life there makes such a sense that it would be foolish not to delve into its most obscure and its brightest depths. Utterly foolish.
There, human dimensions scale down to Nature:
we rise in its abyss and descend in its heights.
The balance between this life, this death, on the edge of a knife
yet each is well worth the effort, the commitment, the sacrifice.
I am giving up this world because I have no other choice:
Life is too much about loss and gain not to live up to it.