Science Fiction and The Concept of Death
DEATH
The theme of history and literature is death. Death, for this poet, too, occupies a place of some primacy. Literary speculations on the nature of death and the after-life are legion. Some sci-fiction hypothesizes a world without death.1 This poetry is possessed of the conviction that a world in which there is no fear of death, in which death is understood within a framework of joy and understanding, as well as respect, fear and awe, would be more desireable than one without death. -Ron Price with thanks to1 science fiction writer Damien Broderick on Books and Writing, ABC Radio National, 14 March 1999.
Face to face with death we are
and with infinity.
‘Tis quite beyond our mind,
though not what is with Thee.1
I survey it once;
survey it twice,
a thousand times or more.
You there; me here,
door closed, your sound,
with oceans of Thy words abound
and honeyed-poison all around,
despair and hope all newly found.
A taste of discontent is left
and moments of dominion
that rush around the soul.2
Ron Price
14 March 1999
1 Baha’u’llah
2 Emily Dickinson, number 627
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