This was published at Dying matters, with permission of the publisher[1]. Clive James is an Aussie High Church Athiest, of a generation now dying. They have done their damage, and if this is their hope, let us pray for their souls.

They need our prayers.

Japanese Maple

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

…
Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

Clive James, 2014

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1. I have not quoted the full poem. See the link.