The Paul Bearer of Frost

A strand of light, gleaming, shining bright
And if you turn around you’d see – 42 flying objects of the promise land.
But on this day, you believe, to have all that you dreamed it would be.
The silenced are heard and those doomed to destiny are free.
I am a Bearer, the Paul Bearer of Frost
I carry forth an end in the dark
I am the slow cold sting and the makers cross
This chance I bring
I bring to all
With all your soul, you steer clear, but with every year, I near.
I carry fear.

And I’ll carry you across planes of the here-after,
only I can transcend the chasms from physical to spiritual nature. (Ancient Rome)
I am the one who bribes Charon to take us across Styx. (Greece)
We’ll carry on deaf past your ancestors chanting and wailing your name as it echoes off the mist. (Polynesia)
The Mystics Philosophize that your soul lives forever,
let’s hope you had made your abode one of Goodness and comfort. (Protestant)
Because we know that Sinners rest in the Hands of an Angry God, as do the angels that help them. (Roman Catholic)
And heaven-forbid you live in squalor in hell, only “God’s Kingdom” (Jehovah’s Witness)
Instead let you be banished to the Terrestrial Kingdom, be you liars, sorcerers, adulterers The Cursed. (Mormons)
I won’t be the one to kick you off Chinvat, As-Sirāt, or Bifröst (Zoroastrianism and Islam)
For all pass over Mount T’ai (Buddhism)
And those will be YOUR balance beams to cross (Native American)
I walk you to the Hall of Ma’at to keep your identity in-line (Egypt)
Leave you to face your imprisonment for 4 years time (Australian Aborigines)
Not as an individual or the whole of creation, I am not your Messiah. (Judaism)
And let you make peace with Brahman, I accept no receipts. (Hinduism)
If you will cease to be from this reality, as a true existence in totality, only you will perceive (Existential)
So read the Bardo Thödol once or twice, but don’t rely on it for sight (Tibetan)
This position outside what you quantify as life that has no future, path or light (Atheist)
But you’re more than welcome to Hope that something better might appear on the proverbial horizon (Agnostic)
And let’s hope you had a dog in your lifetime so you can settle into Chicunauhmictlan(Aztecs)
My nomenclature remains the same,
Mictlantecuhtli, Anubis, Hades,
Azrael, Grim, Mara, Yama, Angra Mainyu, Pluto
Memitim, Inzanami, Thanatos, Ankou
But you may resign to call me demise, because

I am the one with a thousand names
I take the strong, absurd and lame.
From whitened widow, to your neighbors door,
No one ignores my trumpet call.
No child’s cry impedes my step,
Rather than, it hastens them
There is no chance that I won’t come
When I see your number’s up.
I don’t discriminate daughter or son
I am the only one
I take all
And all in time.
But none of these days are mine.

I am death.

– Miles M. ReVera