Dear Departed,
Do you still argue where you are,
or did silence conquer even your convictions?

Tell me,
when you arrived,
did someone welcome you,
or did you simply… realize
you were alone with yourself?

Do you still say,
“This is my God,”
or did the name dissolve
before the answer came?
And if there was no answer,
what then became of your certainty?

Do tribes survive the grave,
or did you carry them with you
like habits you could not bury?
Be honest,
do you still separate yourselves,
even now,
even there?

Do nations exist beneath the soil,
or have you, in your quiet way,
recreated them,
in memory,
in bias,
in refusal?

Tell me,
did death end division,
or did it only remove the stage
where you performed it?
Who is superior now?
No, answer carefully,
who believes they are superior now?

Does hierarchy die,
or does it become invisible
a silent arrangement of pride
with no language left to confess it?
Do the rich still feel rich?
Do the poor still feel poor?
Or did you discover
that poverty was never of the pocket,
and wealth was never of the hand?
And your name,
does it still follow you,
or did you follow it
into nothing?

Tell me,
when no one is left to remember you,
did you finally meet yourself
or did you disappear with the memory of others?
What of your enemies
did you lose them,
or did they survive
inside you?
Do you still need to be right?
Or is “right” a language
that could not cross over?

Answer me this,
did death humble you,
or did it only expose
how little you understood humility?
Do you still hurry?
Strange question, I know
but tell me,
what is urgency
in a place without time?
Or… is there time?
Did eternity feel endless
or did it feel like nothing at all?

Be honest with me
were you disappointed?
Did the afterlife meet your faith,
or did it ignore it?
Did you find what you defended,
or did you find
that you were defending yourself
all along?

Dear Silent Ones,
We assume you know now.
We comfort ourselves with that thought
that death is clarity,
that the grave is understanding.

But tell me
what if it is not?
What if you arrived
and found no answers
only the echo
of the questions you refused to ask?
What if death did not teach you,
but only stopped you
mid-sentence?

If you could return
not as a ghost,
but as truth
would you still speak with confidence?
Would you still divide us
into believer and unbeliever,
native and stranger,
us and them?
Or would you hesitate
just once
before claiming certainty?

Dear Departed,
We, the living,
are still loud with conclusions.
We build permanence
on temporary breath.
We defend illusions
as if they will outlive us.
We are certain
so painfully certain
of things
you can no longer confirm.

So tell me
and do not hide behind silence:
Did you discover the truth…
or did you discover
that truth was never yours to hold?

And this,
this is the question that disturbs me most:
In all your stillness now,
in all your distance from us
Are you finally free…
or just finally unable
to pretend?
Yours,
still asking
what you can no longer answer.