Poem to Emily Dickinson

Pauline Leader

To die by oneself, overnight, as the flower dies, requires
   courage.
Men of God! we die a little each time we chant a prepara-
   tion:
At death, there is very little left to die.
To die and to take the silence with one-
We leave, jealous of the living,
So that it is almost as if it had not been:
This is the true immortality.