The Reassurance

Here's a poem which was sent to me today by an actor whom I've never met, but who has done a lot of work through the agency that I work for - sometimes we need extra actors and he's always done an excellent job for us. He's called David and had been reading my posts about the Communist's death. Thank you, David.

This poem's by Thom Gunn, whose work I know only very slightly, but I really like this. I'd love to be able to believe in life after death and yet I don't seem to be able to: and this poem really sums up that feeling.

Events that some people would take as proof of an afterlife, doubting Daphne just takes as proof that my mind is making "itself secure" and so are other people's too. I do try to keep an open mind: but I've yet to come across anything that will convince me. Though I'd like to, of course!

The Reassurance

About ten days or so

After we saw you dead

You came back in a dream.

I'm all right now you said

And it was you, although

You were fleshed out again:

You hugged us all round then,

And gave your welcoming beam.

How like you to be kind,

Seeking to reassure.

And, yes, how like my mind

To make itself secure.