What (if Anything) Happens After Death?

When this body’s cage I’ll leave,

From its confines earning reprieve,

When this lifetime comes to a stop

And this body I'll have to drop,

What will happen, where will I be,

Will there be someone to care for me

And accompany me on the road ahead

To where we go when we’re thought dead,

And what’ll unfold when I get there?

How will I manage, how will I fare?

The mystery of this great unknown

Is perhaps known to You alone.

We mortals various theories tell,

Of Heaven’s bliss and fires of Hell,

And of endless cycles of rebirth

On departing from Planet Earth.

Some even say we just don’t survive

After having been on Earth alive.

Thus we mortals variously speculate

On what might be our post-death fate.

Though these theories have their allure,

If they’re true, can we really be sure?

What happens, it seems You’ve decreed,

To us when from the body we’re freed,

Must remain unknown till the end,

When we arrive at death’s bend,

Only then will we come to know

What’s next for us to undergo.

Just this for now we know for certain:

That when You lift death's heavy curtain,

We'll at last be able to find

What, if anything, may lie behind.

Till then, a grand mystery it will stay,

Being shown to us only on death’s day.