Good night, sweet Jedi, noble,
wise, and true.
So gentle was he, and too quickly
gone.
O Fate, what hast thou brought into
my life—
How shall I live when all I love
have died?
Yet all things die, and all things
pass away,
And all is like the sweeping of the
stars
As one doth pass through lightspeed’s
rapid blaze.
We know ‘tis true: no mortal does
not know
That all are born to feed insatiate
death.
But O, what grief we meet along the
way:
The knowledge something beautiful
is lost,
The deep regret for all unspoken
words—
Profound remorse for healing never giv’n.
To wish to hold the dead one’s hand
again,
To picture a love’s smile, and know
it gone:
These are the pains that human life
doth bring,
The heartache and the thousand nat’ral
shocks,
That fresh is heir, too. Death
shall not be tam’d,
It shall not lose its victory or
sting,
Yet it shall never have the best of
us
If in our living we have truly liv’d.
To love with bliss, to fight for
righteousness,
To heed adventure’s call, to cry
with joy,
To laugh amidst life’s greatest
heights and depths:
This is the living that doth
conquer death,
So ev’n though it shall come, we
shall not fear’t.
These lessons let my master’s death
teach me,
That my life shall esteem his
memory.
~excerpt from The
Jedi Doth Return, by Ian Doescher