I can see to the future
There's a deafening blast
As the world spins around me
Weaving dreams of my past
And I'm grasping for shelter
Though there's nothing in sight,
But the cold of a winter's night

In the words of my father
I was living too fast
Dealing out empty proverbs
So my likeness could last
But my father looked unto
Fires bearing no light
In the cold of a winter's night

But the winding of time
Won't reverse in its path
And the future draws ever near

Realizing that I'm
Simply tied to the tracks
Filling dreams of my future with fear

Oh the train is unyielding
And I'm trembling inside
For the warmth of a fire
Though my father had lied
See the heavens unfolding
To an ocean of light
And dissolving my being
In the cold of a winter's night

have you ever read The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters? it was first published in 1915. its a book of poems in which each poem (all 200 of them, or so) is spoken by a deceased person buried on a particular hillside cemetery in the town of Spoon River, Illinois. i think its the best book ever written on any subject. but its very interesting in that, when the characters mention the afterlife at all (they almost all dwell on their previous lives) the views of the afterlife they present are often contradictory (a christian character being with jesus, another character becoming one with the universe, another dreaming in a sleep-like state inside his coffin, another experiencing nothing at all after death, and so on). two words:

read it.