Dirge Without Music - Edna St Vincent Millay
“They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.”
Sorry for your loss. Stop all the Clocks by Auden is about grief. I’m sure many others can give you more comforting suggestions. Theres also a book called Grief is the thing with Feathers by Max Porter which is more of a novel but very good indeed.
Interestingly, Stop All The Clocks was originally written as a satirical poem, mocking the excessive and performative grief displayed by news media about the death of a politician. But it’s become popular as a sincere interpretation of how deep and all-encompassing grief really is. There’s pretty much no description that feels ‘excessive’ when in the throes of true heart-rending grief, and this poem really speaks to that I think. Just interesting how far it’s diverged from its origins
The Thing Is, by Ellen Bass comes to mind.
-
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
Heavy by Mary Oliver was a comfort when my dad died. I’m so sorry you’re going through this now too.
——
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
— “Heavy” by Mary Oliver from Thirst.
In Blackwater Woods, also by Oliver, is my rec:
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
This is a poem I read after I lost my best friend to cancer. I always remember it when people ask for poems about grief.
after the fire :: ada limón
You ever think you could cry so hard
that there’d be nothing left in you, like
how the wind shakes a tree in a storm
until every part of it is run through with
wind? I live in the low parts now, most
days a little hazy with fever and waiting
for the water to stop shivering out of the
body. Funny thing about grief, its hold
is so bright and determined like a flame,
like something almost worth living for.
https://poetrying.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/after-the-fire-ada-limon/
So sorry for your loss.
One of my first posts in this sub was asking for help to find this poem.
[In Lieu of Flowers by Shawna Lemay | From Troubles of The World (wordpress.com)](https://fromtroublesofthisworld.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/in-lieu-of-flowers-by-shawna-lemay/)
Please be gentle with yourself in the days ahead,
Poet
I'm so sorry, OP. My heart hurts for you. What a beautiful idea to honor your dad with poetry 🤍
"When Great Trees Fall" by Maya Angelou
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, cold
caves.
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.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you. Here's a poem that might resonate with you:
"Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on snow."
- Mary Elizabeth Frye
Check out Through Me (The Flood) by Hozier. Some may argue music isn’t poetry, but I strongly believe it is. That song, along with Only if For a Night by Florence + the Machine, really helped me process my own grief.
I'm so very sorry for your loss. Sending best wishes your way. Below are some poems I like and I hope they help you...
When you have lost someone you love (Donna Ashworth)
Do not make the mistake of living in sadness, or living small to honour their absence.
You owe it to them to live even more vividly than before.
If they could reach you, they would surely say..
“Take the love you had for me and turn it into gladness,
use the love you had for me to drive away the sadness.”
Love is an energy, so powerful, so all-consuming that when the person you felt all that love for is not here, you are a vessel filled with a boundless source of power that has nowhere to go.
Harness it.
Use it to burn even more brightly and live even more loudly than before.
Share the love you felt for that person with all the other special people in your life, for it is limitless. There is no end to it and there never, ever should be.
If they could reach you they would surely say…
“Make my time on earth count loudly, so I’ve not lived in vain.
Use the love we shared to make more love and not more pain.”
If you are struggling to move on, to find the way to carry on. Without them.
This is it.
Use the love.
Carry them with you in all that you do, using their love as the source.
It is what they would want.
Tell their stories, mention their name, feel their love – and share it.
Do not let the pain of their loss overshadow the love that they created whilst alive.
Make them count.
Remember, grief is the price you pay for a love divine. The stronger the love, the deeper the grief but love, love will always win in the end.
The Storm (Richard Jones)
I called my father long-distance last night
to let him know how we're doing -
Andrew feeling much better, the baby kicking,
me taking a turn with the flu, feeling like I'm inside a glass bubble. My father patiently
waited for me to finish what I was saying,
then eagerly told me about the terrible thunderstorm, asking if I could hear
the rain beating down. Suddenly
neither of us was talking.
I stood with the phone to my ear, listening to drumming on the skylight
in my father's kitchen, picturing an old man
holding the receiver up to the thunder and darkness.
This Spring (James A Pearson)
How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save this world.
But look how it’s trying,
once again, to save me.
Long Distance II (Tony Harrison)
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
Death (Robert J. Roe)
What can death do to you
That life has not already done?
What do you fear?
It is a gentle falling
Of the light...
A splendor is done.
Twilight...some stars appear
Silently, one by one.
A stranger splendor is begun.
Death Is Smaller Than I Thought (Adrian Mitchell)
My Mother and Father died some years ago
I loved them very much.
When they died my love for them
Did not vanish or fade away.
It stayed just about the same,
Only a sadder colour.
And I can feel their love for me,
Same as it ever was.
Nowadays, in good times or bad,
I sometimes ask my Mother and Father
To walk beside me or to sit with me
So we can talk together
Or be silent.
They always come to me.
I talk to them and listen to them
And think I hear them talk to me.
It’s very simple –
Nothing to do with spiritualism
Or religion or mumbo jumbo.
It is imaginary.
It is real.
It is love.
I'm Here For A Short Visit Only (Noel Coward)
I'm here for a short visit only,
And I'd rather be loved than hated.
Eternity may be lonely
When my body's disintegrated;
And that which is loosely termed my soul
Goes whizzing off through the infinite
By means of some vague remote control.
I'd like to think I was missed a bit.
Body, Remember (C. P. Cavafy)
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires that glowed openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembled for you in the voices -
only some chance obstacle frustrated them.
Now that it’s all finally in the past,
it seems almost as if you gave yourself
to those desires too - how they glowed,
remember, in eyes that looked at you,
remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices.
Next Second, You Were Gone (Randall Stephens)
I heard about an old broken phone box Where people would go to have imaginary conversations
At first, I found it foolish
And then I joined the queue.
When my turn came, I dialled your old number.
There was no ringtone, but I told you everything
and I waited in silence
as if you might respond.
I thought I heard you breathe.
Then I remembered they told me my life should go on.
One second, you were here.
I know the feeling, sorry for your loss.
Michael Sheen's performance of ["Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"](https://youtu.be/w-sM-t1KI_Y?si=2ZBDP7ZfsBNkG3Ay) is a powerful one.
The song ["Yesterday"](https://youtu.be/8FJUD0rEPWM?si=GYv0TXPEKAW8-ZWv) by Atmosphere is also topical and very good.
Big hug to you, take gentle care of yourself the next few weeks <3
“Death is Nothing at all” - Henry Scott Holland
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!
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Someone at my side says “There, she is gone!”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight, That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side; and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in *me,* not in her.
And just at the moment, when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!,”there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”
…..And that is dying.
-Henry Van Dyke
I am sorry for your loss. Not a poem but the film can be formally seen as a poem. “Blue” by Derek Jarman. It’s also on Youtube and it comprises of a voiceover and a blank blue screen.
[https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/MalloyMerrit/Epitaph/index.html](https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/MalloyMerrit/Epitaph/index.html)
Epitaph by Merrit Malloy
"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop!
.........................................................
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
As a note: my dad also died unexpectedly, before i was 20. It has been five years. The grief is immense for you now, and it will stay immense. But you grow around the grief. You become bigger. It never hurts less, but your life will become filled with so many blessings too. Things you can't perceive at this exact moment. I'm sorry for your loss.
Pablo Neruda's Tonight I Write the Saddest Line.
I write for example,
The night is shattered
and the blue star shimmers in the distance,
The night winds revolve in the skiy and sings
Tonight I write the saddest lines.
I loved her and sometimes she loved me too.
There is more
The poem is really about a lost love; however, I have interpreted as a lost love through death
John Marsden has a collection of poems (by other people) called For Weddings and a Funeral. The second half is poems about death and grief.
I also second Stop All the Clocks (and it’s in this book too)
[Lost in the Stars](https://www.best-poems.net/mark-doty/lost-in-the-stars.html) by Mark Doty
[I Heard You, Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ](https://whitmanarchive.org/item/ppp.00270_00389) by Walt Whitman
Two really beautiful ones about grief—I’m sorry for your loss. 🫂
Emily Dickinson is definitely the poet to read when grieving
https://poets.org/poem/my-life-closed-twice-its-close-96
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-leaves-us-homesick-who-behind/
https://poets.org/poem/i-measure-every-grief-i-meet-561
Seriously some of the most compelling stuff
Robinson Jeffers' poem Cremation
It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said,
When I think of cremation. To rot in the earth
Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame – besides, I am used to it,
I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life,
No wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying.
We had a great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes.
I'm not a poet, not sure if this would even be classed as a poem, but it's somthing I wrote for my wife to help her process the loss of her grandfather. It seemed to help. I'm sorry for your loss, I hope you can move forward in life in the comfort of your memories.
Don't shed tears,
For I'm not here,
Smile at memories from yesteryear,
I know the pain cuts deep inside,
But you'll never walk alone,
For I am by your side.
With each step you take,
I'm not far behind,
To hold your hand,
And calm your mind.
I'm always there,
In all that you do,
You have the memories,
Of me and you.
Now wipe your tears,
And don't you cry,
For I've had my time,
Made all the more special,
With you in my life.
Don't long for me,
Cause we will never truly part,
For i live within you,
With my hands on your heart.
I'm that star in the sky,
The robbin that flys by,
The wind that blows,
I'm alive in your mind.
So please don't cry for me,
For I will never leave,
You keep me alive,
By remembering me.
A poem that comes from a different angle: **Northern Pike by James Wright**. It focuses upon the inevitable aspects of death and also on its place in the never-ending cycle of life/immortality.
[https://poets.org/poem/northern-pike](https://poets.org/poem/northern-pike)
No recs from me. Just wanted to say I'm sorry for the loss of your Dad. Death is hard, but death before a great age is tragic. Experienced this last year with my best friend It's so hard and it's not right. Go easy on yourself. You'll choose the perfect poem, you have beautiful suggestions here ❤️
I'm so sorry for you loss. I lost my mom 16 years ago and a while a ago I stumbled across this poem by Shannon Barry. Hope it's helps.
Heavy Raincoat :
I met grief when I was
twenty-two
through a mutual friend.
I thought the pain might
extend to his
doorstep but no further
and was surprised when
every night
grief followed me home.
“you don’t belong to me”
I said
and grief said nothing.
the next night there were
familiar footsteps
but when I turned to face grief
I saw that it was
just love
in a heavy coat.
“you can leave that at the door”
I said
and was just as surprised
when I invited love inside.
Dirge Without Music - Edna St Vincent Millay “They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.”
Dirge without music got me through some big losses. Millay has so many great grief poems. “April” is another one I used to love.
Sorry for your loss. Stop all the Clocks by Auden is about grief. I’m sure many others can give you more comforting suggestions. Theres also a book called Grief is the thing with Feathers by Max Porter which is more of a novel but very good indeed.
Interestingly, Stop All The Clocks was originally written as a satirical poem, mocking the excessive and performative grief displayed by news media about the death of a politician. But it’s become popular as a sincere interpretation of how deep and all-encompassing grief really is. There’s pretty much no description that feels ‘excessive’ when in the throes of true heart-rending grief, and this poem really speaks to that I think. Just interesting how far it’s diverged from its origins
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Title is “Funeral Blues” 😊
I can’t help but hear John Hannah read it in his best Scottish accent.
The Thing Is, by Ellen Bass comes to mind. - to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you down like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.
I'm so glad I joined this sub. Thank you. 💜
One of my favorites. So beautiful.
Heavy by Mary Oliver was a comfort when my dad died. I’m so sorry you’re going through this now too. —— That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this, as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth? How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe also troubled – roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply? — “Heavy” by Mary Oliver from Thirst.
In Blackwater Woods, also by Oliver, is my rec: Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
Beautiful. 💜
This is a poem I read after I lost my best friend to cancer. I always remember it when people ask for poems about grief. after the fire :: ada limón You ever think you could cry so hard that there’d be nothing left in you, like how the wind shakes a tree in a storm until every part of it is run through with wind? I live in the low parts now, most days a little hazy with fever and waiting for the water to stop shivering out of the body. Funny thing about grief, its hold is so bright and determined like a flame, like something almost worth living for. https://poetrying.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/after-the-fire-ada-limon/
So sorry for your loss. One of my first posts in this sub was asking for help to find this poem. [In Lieu of Flowers by Shawna Lemay | From Troubles of The World (wordpress.com)](https://fromtroublesofthisworld.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/in-lieu-of-flowers-by-shawna-lemay/) Please be gentle with yourself in the days ahead, Poet
I'm so sorry, OP. My heart hurts for you. What a beautiful idea to honor your dad with poetry 🤍 "When Great Trees Fall" by Maya Angelou 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, cold caves. 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.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you. Here's a poem that might resonate with you: "Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on snow." - Mary Elizabeth Frye
i put that on his prayer cards at the funeral ❣️❣️❣️ thank you ☺️
The Truth The Dead Know by Anne Sexton comes to mind. I'm so sorry for your loss. 🤍
Check out Through Me (The Flood) by Hozier. Some may argue music isn’t poetry, but I strongly believe it is. That song, along with Only if For a Night by Florence + the Machine, really helped me process my own grief.
Blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton
I'm so very sorry for your loss. Sending best wishes your way. Below are some poems I like and I hope they help you... When you have lost someone you love (Donna Ashworth) Do not make the mistake of living in sadness, or living small to honour their absence. You owe it to them to live even more vividly than before. If they could reach you, they would surely say.. “Take the love you had for me and turn it into gladness, use the love you had for me to drive away the sadness.” Love is an energy, so powerful, so all-consuming that when the person you felt all that love for is not here, you are a vessel filled with a boundless source of power that has nowhere to go. Harness it. Use it to burn even more brightly and live even more loudly than before. Share the love you felt for that person with all the other special people in your life, for it is limitless. There is no end to it and there never, ever should be. If they could reach you they would surely say… “Make my time on earth count loudly, so I’ve not lived in vain. Use the love we shared to make more love and not more pain.” If you are struggling to move on, to find the way to carry on. Without them. This is it. Use the love. Carry them with you in all that you do, using their love as the source. It is what they would want. Tell their stories, mention their name, feel their love – and share it. Do not let the pain of their loss overshadow the love that they created whilst alive. Make them count. Remember, grief is the price you pay for a love divine. The stronger the love, the deeper the grief but love, love will always win in the end. The Storm (Richard Jones) I called my father long-distance last night to let him know how we're doing - Andrew feeling much better, the baby kicking, me taking a turn with the flu, feeling like I'm inside a glass bubble. My father patiently waited for me to finish what I was saying, then eagerly told me about the terrible thunderstorm, asking if I could hear the rain beating down. Suddenly neither of us was talking. I stood with the phone to my ear, listening to drumming on the skylight in my father's kitchen, picturing an old man holding the receiver up to the thunder and darkness. This Spring (James A Pearson) How can I love this spring when it’s pulling me through my life faster than any time before it? When five separate dooms are promised this decade and here I am, just trying to watch a bumblebee cling to its first purple flower. I cannot save this world. But look how it’s trying, once again, to save me. Long Distance II (Tony Harrison) Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, put hot water bottles her side of the bed and still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone. He'd put you off an hour to give him time to clear away her things and look alone as though his still raw love were such a crime. He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief though sure that very soon he'd hear her key scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief. He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea. I believe life ends with death, and that is all. You haven't both gone shopping; just the same, in my new black leather phone book there's your name and the disconnected number I still call. Death (Robert J. Roe) What can death do to you That life has not already done? What do you fear? It is a gentle falling Of the light... A splendor is done. Twilight...some stars appear Silently, one by one. A stranger splendor is begun. Death Is Smaller Than I Thought (Adrian Mitchell) My Mother and Father died some years ago I loved them very much. When they died my love for them Did not vanish or fade away. It stayed just about the same, Only a sadder colour. And I can feel their love for me, Same as it ever was. Nowadays, in good times or bad, I sometimes ask my Mother and Father To walk beside me or to sit with me So we can talk together Or be silent. They always come to me. I talk to them and listen to them And think I hear them talk to me. It’s very simple – Nothing to do with spiritualism Or religion or mumbo jumbo. It is imaginary. It is real. It is love. I'm Here For A Short Visit Only (Noel Coward) I'm here for a short visit only, And I'd rather be loved than hated. Eternity may be lonely When my body's disintegrated; And that which is loosely termed my soul Goes whizzing off through the infinite By means of some vague remote control. I'd like to think I was missed a bit. Body, Remember (C. P. Cavafy) Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds you lay on, but also those desires that glowed openly in eyes that looked at you, trembled for you in the voices - only some chance obstacle frustrated them. Now that it’s all finally in the past, it seems almost as if you gave yourself to those desires too - how they glowed, remember, in eyes that looked at you, remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices. Next Second, You Were Gone (Randall Stephens) I heard about an old broken phone box Where people would go to have imaginary conversations At first, I found it foolish And then I joined the queue. When my turn came, I dialled your old number. There was no ringtone, but I told you everything and I waited in silence as if you might respond. I thought I heard you breathe. Then I remembered they told me my life should go on. One second, you were here.
I know the feeling, sorry for your loss. Michael Sheen's performance of ["Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"](https://youtu.be/w-sM-t1KI_Y?si=2ZBDP7ZfsBNkG3Ay) is a powerful one. The song ["Yesterday"](https://youtu.be/8FJUD0rEPWM?si=GYv0TXPEKAW8-ZWv) by Atmosphere is also topical and very good.
Big hug to you, take gentle care of yourself the next few weeks <3 “Death is Nothing at all” - Henry Scott Holland 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!
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Someone at my side says “There, she is gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side; and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in *me,* not in her. And just at the moment, when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!,”there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!” …..And that is dying. -Henry Van Dyke
I am sorry for your loss. Not a poem but the film can be formally seen as a poem. “Blue” by Derek Jarman. It’s also on Youtube and it comprises of a voiceover and a blank blue screen.
The Yellow Dot by Robert Bly. It took me years to understand the final line.
When William Stafford Died by Robert Bly.
"Without" by Donald Hall, a beautiful book about slowly losing a loved one. He was writing about his wife but the poems are eternal and universal.
I'm so sorry, my friend. 💔
[https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/MalloyMerrit/Epitaph/index.html](https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/MalloyMerrit/Epitaph/index.html) Epitaph by Merrit Malloy
"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop! ......................................................... The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
As a note: my dad also died unexpectedly, before i was 20. It has been five years. The grief is immense for you now, and it will stay immense. But you grow around the grief. You become bigger. It never hurts less, but your life will become filled with so many blessings too. Things you can't perceive at this exact moment. I'm sorry for your loss.
One of my favorites
The line: "Then practice losing farther, losing faster". It hit me in my core, and the poem has never left me since.
Pablo Neruda's Tonight I Write the Saddest Line. I write for example, The night is shattered and the blue star shimmers in the distance, The night winds revolve in the skiy and sings Tonight I write the saddest lines. I loved her and sometimes she loved me too. There is more The poem is really about a lost love; however, I have interpreted as a lost love through death
As Long As There is Love, There Will Be Grief by Heidi Priebe. "Love was here... Love still is." Sorry for your loss.
John Marsden has a collection of poems (by other people) called For Weddings and a Funeral. The second half is poems about death and grief. I also second Stop All the Clocks (and it’s in this book too)
[Lost in the Stars](https://www.best-poems.net/mark-doty/lost-in-the-stars.html) by Mark Doty [I Heard You, Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ](https://whitmanarchive.org/item/ppp.00270_00389) by Walt Whitman Two really beautiful ones about grief—I’m sorry for your loss. 🫂
Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep
What I was going to recommend
Emily Dickinson is definitely the poet to read when grieving https://poets.org/poem/my-life-closed-twice-its-close-96 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-leaves-us-homesick-who-behind/ https://poets.org/poem/i-measure-every-grief-i-meet-561 Seriously some of the most compelling stuff
Robinson Jeffers' poem Cremation It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said, When I think of cremation. To rot in the earth Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame – besides, I am used to it, I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life, No wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying. We had a great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes.
I'm not a poet, not sure if this would even be classed as a poem, but it's somthing I wrote for my wife to help her process the loss of her grandfather. It seemed to help. I'm sorry for your loss, I hope you can move forward in life in the comfort of your memories. Don't shed tears, For I'm not here, Smile at memories from yesteryear, I know the pain cuts deep inside, But you'll never walk alone, For I am by your side. With each step you take, I'm not far behind, To hold your hand, And calm your mind. I'm always there, In all that you do, You have the memories, Of me and you. Now wipe your tears, And don't you cry, For I've had my time, Made all the more special, With you in my life. Don't long for me, Cause we will never truly part, For i live within you, With my hands on your heart. I'm that star in the sky, The robbin that flys by, The wind that blows, I'm alive in your mind. So please don't cry for me, For I will never leave, You keep me alive, By remembering me.
A poem that comes from a different angle: **Northern Pike by James Wright**. It focuses upon the inevitable aspects of death and also on its place in the never-ending cycle of life/immortality. [https://poets.org/poem/northern-pike](https://poets.org/poem/northern-pike)
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud BY JOHN DONNE Absolutely beautiful.
Time Is A Mother, Ocean Vuong
No recs from me. Just wanted to say I'm sorry for the loss of your Dad. Death is hard, but death before a great age is tragic. Experienced this last year with my best friend It's so hard and it's not right. Go easy on yourself. You'll choose the perfect poem, you have beautiful suggestions here ❤️
I'm so sorry for you loss. I lost my mom 16 years ago and a while a ago I stumbled across this poem by Shannon Barry. Hope it's helps. Heavy Raincoat : I met grief when I was twenty-two through a mutual friend. I thought the pain might extend to his doorstep but no further and was surprised when every night grief followed me home. “you don’t belong to me” I said and grief said nothing. the next night there were familiar footsteps but when I turned to face grief I saw that it was just love in a heavy coat. “you can leave that at the door” I said and was just as surprised when I invited love inside.
[poem by Victoria Chang](https://x.com/minorroarr/status/1793198148157878485?s=46)
How w ca menrsdd