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!

In Lieu of Flowers - Shawna Lemay

Although I love flowers very much, I won’t see them when I’m gone. So in lieu of flowers:
Buy a book of poetry written by someone still alive, sit outside with a cup of tea, a glass of wine, and read it out loud, by yourself or to someone, or silently.
Spend some time with a single flower. A rose maybe. Smell it, touch the petals.
Really look at it.
Drink a nice bottle of wine with someone you love.
Or, Champagne. And think of what John Maynard Keynes said, “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.” Or what Dom Perignon said when he first tasted the stuff: “Come quickly! I am tasting stars!”
Take out a paint set and lay down some colours.
Watch birds. Common sparrows are fine. Pigeons, too. Geese are nice. Robins.
In lieu of flowers, walk in the trees and watch the light fall into it. Eat an apple, a really nice big one. I hope it’s crisp.
Have a long soak in the bathtub with candles, maybe some rose petals.
Sit on the front stoop and watch the clouds. Have a dish of strawberry ice cream in my name.
If it’s winter, have a cup of hot chocolate outside for me. If it’s summer, a big glass of ice water.
If it’s autumn, collect some leaves and press them in a book you love. I’d like that.
Sit and look out a window and write down what you see. Write some other things down.
In lieu of flowers,
I would wish for you to flower.
I would wish for you to blossom, to open, to be beautiful.

Life After Death IV excerpt - Laura Crafton Gilpin

 

The things I know:
how the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them

So that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it

and in the spring the rabbits find it
and build their nest inside
and have their young
and their young will live safely
inside the dead tree

So that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.

Swift Things Are Beautiful by Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

 

Swift things are beautiful:
Swallows and deer,
And lightening that falls
Bright-veined and clear,
Rivers and meteors,
Wind in the wheat,
The strong-withered horse,
The runner’s sure feet.

And slow things are beautiful:
The closing of day,
The pause of the wave
That curves downward to spray,
The ember that crumbles,
The opening flower,
And the ox that moves on
In the quiet of power.

Rain in Camp by Silas Weir Mitchell

The camp-fire smoulders and will not burn,
And a sulky smoke from the blackened logs
Lazily swirls through the dank wood caves;
And the laden leaves with a quick relief
Let fall their loads, as the pool beyond
Leaps’neath the thin gray lash of the rain,
And is builded thick with silver bells.
But I lie on my back in vague despair,
Trying it over thrice and again,
To see if my words will say the thing.
But the sodden moss, and the wet black wood,
And the shining curves of the dancing leaves,
The drip and drop, and tumble and patter,
The humming roar in the sturdy pines,
Alas, shall there no man paint or tell.

 

From The Guide to Urban Living by Susan Fealy

 

(i) How to hug a tree

Find the widest patch of parkland,
the longest line of trees.

Walk the path between them,
like a sergeant major—
walk until your rhythm
dissolves
all notions of hierarchy.

Notice how the trunks are spangled
pale green,
as if the heartwood
is imagining
how to live at its rim.

Sprawl yourself under a canopy.
Let its green wind
rinse clean through you.

Travel your eyes along each speckled limb,
each tracery of tiny branches,
the internet of green.

Observe how its leaves sift sunlight,
how it sounds like water
running upwards.

Yet, when the sun slips,
a tree empties itself
of light and air, unhitches from the sky.

And binds, densely, to the earth.

Lay your spine down
among its roots, and stay,
for as long as you can forget

how to stand up and walk away.

 

Balance by James Womack

 
It didn’t want to let the morning
Come, as if the globe were rocking back,
Back and forwards, twisting gently like
A fair-day weathervane, and turning
Towards the sun, turning us away.
Calm but firm, the world like a mother
Did not allow it to be either
One thing or the other, night or day.
The sky was gritty with darkness, with
The light and the dark mixed, for the air
Was full of masonry-dust, plaster,
Powder, snowflakes, soot. I thought that if
I tore the page off the calendar
The next page would have the same number.
It didn’t want to let morning come.
Fine by us. But the mechanism
Slips suddenly out of gear – we are
Jerked forward, lose balance once more.
This is the last station of autumn –
The sun is up, the scales have fallen

What the Living Do - Marie Howe

 

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

The Thing Is - Ellen Bass

 

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.
 

Bright Bloom By Helene Achanzar

 

I wish I had hiked the frozen hill tonight 

for reception, called to tell you I had a good time 

 

hearing the two Somali cab drivers laughing 

near an avalanche of on-sale oranges.  

 

I played a prince in absolute awe 

as the orchestra soared. I wish I had braved

 

the snow to say, I ain't want nothing but got the world. 

How I’ll whisper about the one wasp

 

who lived with me here through all of October,  

that snowy owl in the nettles so close inland 

 

in November, the night, its lick of moon. Tell me again 

what your home looks like: wet grapefruit pulp, 

 

pomegranate juices running over fingers 

as the fruit is split, every dirt smudge 

 

on the cream carpet. The morning sunlight dancing 

off shards of glass, knocking perfume bottles 

 

and photographs, light emptying into itself like a sun 

at the center of a sun. This life of little regret 

 

with no sad trombones. I imagine a new year

caked with your grin, your unflagging belief 

 

in the bright bloom, the point just before liberation. 

The road will end one day, but on all other days, 

 

it does not. Think, my love, of all the stars 

where better versions are breathing.