Poems

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again! Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918

My Soulmate

I still say I Love You, But now there’s no reply. I always feel your presence As if you never left my side. I remember your comforting voice. Now there’s not a sound. Only echoes from the past Follow me around. You’re always by my side, But I can’t hold your hand. The reason why God took you I find hard to understand. Summer days seem much shorter. Dark nights just linger on. Dreams turn into nightmares When the one you love has gone. But real love never fades. It still burns like the sun. Although they’re far away, Those memories go on and on. Her spirit will never die It shines like the stars. I know you’re sleeping in heaven, But you’re living in my heart.

Theodor Fontane, 1819-1898

On pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Theodor Storm, 1817-1888

On the Death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss, You dwell in that safe place in our hearts, Where no storm or night or pain can reach you. Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of colour. The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything. John O’Donohue, 1956-2008

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things. Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes, We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones. When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again. John O’Donohue, 1956-2008

After Death

Now while my lips are living Their words must stay unsaid, And will my soul remember To speak when I am dead? Yet if my soul remembered You would not heed it, dear, For now you must not listen, And then you could not hear. Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933

W.S. Merwin, 1927-2019

Consolation

Comfort yourself, the hours hurry, And what may push you. Even the worst cannot stay And another day is coming. In the eternal coming, waning, Happiness, like pain, And also find cheerful pictures Your way back to you.

Wait, hope. Not in vain If you count the hours of stroke: Change is the lot of life, And – another day is coming.

Theodor Fontane, 1819-1998

For Katrina’s sun dial

Time is too slow for those who wait, Too swift for those who fear, Too long for those who grieve, Too short for those who rejoice, But for those who love, time is Eternity.

Theo. F., 1819-1888

If Death is kind

Autoplay next video Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, We will come back to earth some fragrant night, And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white. We will come down at night to these resounding beaches And the long gentle thunder of the sea, Here for a single hour in the wide starlight We shall be happy, for the dead are free.   Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933

Countee Cullen, 1903-1946

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops – at all –

Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

Remember

Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

The loss of Love

All through an empty place I go, And find her not in any room; The candles and the lamps I light Go down before a wind of gloom. Thick-spraddled lies the dust about, A fit, sad place to write her name Or draw her face the way she looked That legendary night she came. The old house crumbles bit by bit; Each day I hear the ominous thud That says another rent is there For winds to pierce and storms to flood. My orchards groan and sag with fruit; Where, Indian-wise, the bees go round; I let it rot upon the bough; I eat what falls upon the ground. The heavy cows go laboring In agony with clotted teats; My hands are slack; my blood is cold; I marvel that my heart still beats. I have no will to weep or sing, No least desire to pray or curse; The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.

Augustinus, 345-430 (A.D.)

“Mama” never forgets her birds  

Mama never forgets her birds, Though in another tree— She looks down just as often And just as tenderly As when her little mortal nest With cunning care she wove— If either of her “sparrows fall,” She “notices,” above.   Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

R. M. Rilke, 1875-1926

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety.

When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken.

Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance,
 fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
 of dark, coldcaves.

And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.

Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost, 1874-1963

To an Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose. Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears. Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup. And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s.

A.E. Housman, 1859-1936

The Window

Your body is away from me but there is a window open from my heart to yours. From this window, like the moon I keep sending news secretly.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, 1207-1273

There is no night without a dawning

There is no night without a dawning No winter without a spring And beyond the dark horizon Our hearts will once more sing… For those who leave us for a while Have only gone away Out of a restless, care worn world Into a brighter day.

Helen Steiner Rice, 1900-1981

Separation

Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

R. Maria Rilke, 1875-1926