Do not stand at my grave and weep

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. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.

~Mary Elizabeth Frye

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Throw Yourself Like Seed

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit; Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate That brushes your heel as it turns going by, The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. Now you are only giving food to that final pain Which is slowly winding you in the nets of death, But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts Is the work; start there, turn to the work. Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field, Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death, And do not let the past weigh down your motion. Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself, For life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds; From your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.

~Miguel de Unamuno

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on that sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~Dylan Thomas

Ballad of the Moon

translated by Will Kirkland

The moon came into the forge in her bustle of flowering nard. The little boy stares at her, stares. The boy is staring hard. In the shaken air the moon moves her amrs, and shows lubricious and pure, her breasts of hard tin. "Moon, moon, moon, run! If the gypsies come, they will use your heart to make white necklaces and rings." "Let me dance, my little one. When the gypsies come, they'll find you on the anvil with your lively eyes closed tight. "Moon, moon, moon, run! I can feelheir horses come." "Let me be, my little one, don't step on me, all starched and white!" Closer comes the the horseman, drumming on the plain. The boy is in the forge; his eyes are closed. Through the olive grove come the gypsies, dream and bronze, their heads held high, their hooded eyes. Oh, how the night owl calls, calling, calling from its tree! The moon is climbing through the sky with the child by the hand. They are crying in the forge, all the gypsies, shouting, crying. The air is veiwing all, views all. The air is at the viewing.

~Federico García Lorca