Death's Portal

The following poem was written May 31st of 2009 while I was in Rome. I had left my friends, and headed off to a little crypt that a friend had told me about, called the "Crypt of the Capuchin Monks." (they were just going to another castle thingy… seen too many of those anyway…)
Anyway, the crypt was a weird place. The Capuchin Monks had moved from somewhere else in Rome to where the crypt now is, and they dug up and took the remains of their order. Then, some time later, a random guy staying with them took all the bones of the late monks and started making artwork with it in the chambers under the church. Kinda weird right? But it was also awesome. The designs, knowing that those were human femurs, pelvises, arms, skulls… set a shudder down my spine. But one thing struck me: This crypt wasn't about the dominance or tyranny of death. It wasn't a depressing place to me at all! The focus of each of the six rooms wasn't on the loss of the monks that died, and as much as I was drawn to the dried out mummified faces, I was also drawn to their focus: each mummy was holding a cross. Every room was focused around the idea that death had not won, that these monks were, in death, finally realizing the power of the truth that they clung to in life.
So, after seeing and noticing that, I wrote this short poem standing on a random street corner after leaving the crypt :-)


I tell you, Death,
you shall not be
any more than
a portal to me.

Clinging to the Cross
unto the other side,
you may have my body
but with my Savior I reside.

For He has taken far from you
your power over me,
and when from death He calls me forth
with Him I will be.



In the last crypt there was written:
"What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..."