I was looking for a poem to comfort a friend and came across this sonnet-ish poem by Clare Harner (1909-1977). Like Dorothy, she hailed from Kansas. That’s very different country from mine, and the poem was written way back in 1934. I find the rhyme a bit much, the images a bit cliched—but it’s still so beautiful, all these years on, and the repetition makes it great to read aloud. Is there some toxic positivity in there? Denial, maybe? Let me know what you think!
Immortality
by dead guest poet Clare Harner
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow1
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush2
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.3
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
— by Clare Harner; first published in The Gypsy, December 1934
Image from Pexels Free Photos.
- Not a big fan of this line … we don’t get much snow in Australia. ↩︎
- This is by far my favourite line. ↩︎
- Most satisfying rhyming couplet. ↩︎
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yes, it’s a wonderfully positive poem; I do know it but have not come across it for the longest time —
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To cry is a quality I lost decades ago. But I agree with the poet that in the grave lie dead remnants only, and the words that remind us of the ‘anima’ in the wind or rain is where our mind may go for remembrance.
good wishes, Drager
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The physical remains are still part of the natural world and take new forms…I have a funeral tomorrow, sadly
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