Some more short bereavement and sympathy poems.

Memory Can Tell Us Only What We Were

Memory can tell us only what we were,
In company with those we loved,
It cannot help us find out what each of us,
Alone, must now become.
Yet, no person is really alone,
Those who live no more still echo
Within our thoughts and words,
And what they did has become
Woven into what we are.

~Richard Fife


Turn Again to Life

If I should die and leave you here a while,
be not like others sore undone,
who keep long vigil by the silent dust.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
nerving thy heart and trembling hand
to do something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine
and I perchance may therein comfort you.

~ Mary Lee Hall