WHAT  WILL  YOU  SAY  AND  SEE 

ABOUT YOUR LIFE 

AT  THE  MOMENT  OF  YOUR  DEATH?

Poem for Today - July 18, 2014

ON THE DEATH OF THE BELOVED

Though we need to weep your loss,

You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,

 Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn

Brightening over our lives,

Awakening beneath the dark

A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice

Found for us

A new music

That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze

Quickened in the joy of its being,

You placed smiles like flowers

On the altar of the heart.

Your mind always sparkled

With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,

Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer

From the old distance of our names;

Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,

As close to us as we are to ourselves.

© John O’Donohue

page 184 in Benedictus,

A Book of Blessings,

Bantam Press, 2007