Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground

——

Life Is A Journey
Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
and youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
and ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to desecration
and then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength or
from strength to weakness
and often back again;
From health to sickness
and we pray to health again.
From offense to forgiveness
from loneliness to love
from joy to gratitude
from pain to compassion
from grief to understanding
from fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat
until looking backwards or ahead
We see that victory lies not
at some high point along the way
but in having made the journey
step by step
a sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey;
A sacred journey to life everlasting

——

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

——

Because I could not stop for Death
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death–
He kindly stopped for me–
The Carriage held but just Ourselves–
And Immortality.
We slowly drove–He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility–
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess–in the Ring–
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain–
We passed the Setting Sun–
Or rather–He passed Us–
The Dews drew quivering and chill–
For only Gossamer, my Gown–
My Tippet–only Tulle–
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground–
The Roof was scarcely visible–
The Cornice–in the Ground–
Since then–’tis Centuries–and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity–

——

Death Is A Door
Death is only an old door
Set in a garden wall;
On gentle hinges it gives, at dusk
When the thrushes call.
Along the linted are green leaves,
Beyond the light lies still;
Very willing and weary feet
Go over that sill.
There is nothing to trouble any heart;
Nothing to hurt at all.
Death is only a quiet door
In an old wall.

——

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this,–but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,–and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.

——

Death is a dialogue between.
The spirit and the dust.
Dissolve,says Death. The Spirit, Sir,
I have another trust.
Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.

——

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.
I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that swiftly blow.
I am the diamond glint
on newly fallen snow.
I am the sunlight
on ripened grain.
I am the soft and gentle autumn rain
When you wake from sleep in the early morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft, starlight at night.Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to 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 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 effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
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 around the corner.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.
I do not sleep.

——

Death is a brief separation
A temporary pain
Grieve not my dear
The sun will shine again
Death separates our bodies
But our hearts remain the same
And the memories of our love
Will soothe away your pain
And carry you over
Until we meet again.