selflessness occurs
in the animal kingdom
— yet for a man, such
raw simplicity never
works out quite so straightforward
As when I once saw a mother duck launch herself directly into the face of a dog. Last night I dreamed I was trying to protect Liz from the shock wave and radiation of a nuclear bomb. Hopeless futile gesture. Not unlike the mother duck’s in fact. And of course, awake, I have Freud to contend with, who might argue that the dream expresses a death wish against Liz and not simply a desire to save her.
sciencegoodmagicbetter 
Posted by Mirabai on November 21, 2014 at 9:54 am
The last two poems seem to me connected (well of course everything’s connected), in terms of the inherent importance of one’s last experience on earth, regardless of what we believe happens afterwards. So even if John and Liz die from the nuclear blast it is a beautiful and special thing that her last experience is to see someone who loves her so much that it is his instinct to run to her protection. This is the last thing she sees. And he dies knowing he has been selfless to the last, or at least loving, so he can die with respect for himself. Similarly it is important to know that Doug died in the hand of someone who loved him. To be forsaken in our last moments, as Jesus’s cries hammer home, is a truly terrible thing. But I suppose that if we can’t be there it is better to let it be known somehow that there are souls who regret missing that moment than for the abandonment to last for eternity.