You are walking from the known to the unknown through paths and ways I know,

What is your name? When were you born? Do you have children?

Are you loved or hated? Do you have a car, and clothes and a home in which to live?

All things that were important to you, All that you think is yours, including your body, Leave them there!”, Death points with a boney finger to the earth

“Leave your eyes, your ears, your taste, your smell, your touch, and tongue,

Leave your teeth, your beauty, your strength, and your sorrows,

Leave them all here, at the door to the temple of Self, to the temple of soul”,

Death motions with a toothy grin

“You are nothing, possessing nothing,

What now can you offer in gratitude for your life? I am the Gatekeeper” His soulless eyes glowing with dim fire

I shan’t allow you beyond the veil in ignorance

So listen now and I will speak of truths real but not sweet”

“In life, experience wonder, laugh without a spoken joke,

Walk in the rain in love with the earth beneath your feet, and a smile at the sky above,

Knowing some day you’ll die,

Some day your children will cry as loved ones dress you in your last,

Some day they’ll cover your body with earth and say prayers for their loss,

And then they’ll walk away to their homes and miss you,

But unknown and unseen, you’ll rise and walk with me, leaving your clothes, your casket and your bones”

“Nothing on earth belongs to you, not even your body!

So clothe yourself in good deeds and shine like a sun of the morning,

For some day you’ll come to me, and all you think you have I’ll take and leave you empty,

They that possess to them will be given more, but to they that possess not even that which they think they possess I will take”

“Leave your eyes, your ears, your taste, your smell, your touch, and tongue,

Leave your teeth, your beauty, your strength, and your sorrows,

Leave them all here, at the door to the temple of Self, to the temple of soul”,

Leave them here!