Death’s Divine Music

To awaken, as Thoreau once did from a dream, to find oneself a musical instrument, with the last notes dying away. To say, I was borne this day unto death’s divine music, and then pass in a canoe over the brink of a waterfall, only to find, upon landing, that the canoe has become a cabin in the woods and the waterfall a gentle rain on the roof. And now you are a child, and your little play stew pot is full of leaves and moss, and John Muir has come to dinner. He tastes the stew and smiles. It’s wonderful, he says, but I think it needs one or two pine cones. And to your delight, he drops them in.

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