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Category Archives: Great Legacy Poems
Great Legacy Poem – Wake by Langston Hughes
Tell all my mourners
To mourn in red –
Cause there ain’t no sense
In my bein’ dead.
Langston Hughes,
(1902 – 1967)
Great Legacy Poem – To One Shortly to Die by Walt Whitman
From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,
You are to die–let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you–there is no escape for you.
Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you ‘ust feel it,
I do not argue, I bend my head close and half envelop it,
I sit quietly by, I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is
eternal, you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.
The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions,
Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile,
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping friends,
I am with you,
I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be commiserated,
I do not commiserate, I congratulate you.
Walt Whitman,
(1819 – 1892)
Great Legacy Poem – To a Dead Man by Carl Sandburg
Over the dead line we have called to you
To come across with a word to us,
Some beaten whisper of what happens
Where you are over the dead line
Deaf to our calls and voiceless.
The flickering shadows have not answered
Nor your lips sent a signal
Whether love talks and roses grow
And the sun breaks at morning
Splattering the sea with crimson.
Carl Sandburg,
(1878 – 1967)
Great Legacy Poem – The Funeral by Sean Joyce
Weasel words
with easy starts
are not the first
ones to our hearts
when the cold cadaver light of day
takes one of those we love away
After the funeral
- when the funeral was over
- After we had buried him
We walked across the grass
…We walked across the grass
leaving footprints in the dew
footprints in the dew
How was that possible
’God’s name how was that possible
with him forever
And now, forever
footprints forever
looking back across the grass
The warmth of the day
losing us all, forever
Great Legacy Poem – She, At His Funeral by Thomas Hardy
THEY bear him to his resting-place—
In slow procession sweeping by;
I follow at a stranger’s space;
His kindred they, his sweetheart I.
Unchanged my gown of garish dye,
Though sable-sad is their attire;
But they stand round with griefless eye,
Whilst my regret consumes like fire!
Thomas Hardy, 1840–1928
Great Legacy Poem – Procession by Sonny Rainshine
A sinuous black worm,
the funeral procession
of black limousines crawls
toward the cemetary.
The headlights on the
hearse stare straight ahead
like zombies’ eyes,
illuminating the way.
Automobiles passing
the opposite way pull over,
some passengers hushed,
some restless.
Burdened with baby’s breath
gladioli sprays and black lace,
a funeral is solemn
departure—a journey
before the journey
after the journey.
Sonny Rainshine
