No one dead who loved you
Would wish your future years dismembered
Against the rocks of their departure.
They would not sentence you to the guilt of betrayal
For any moment they weren’t uppermost in your mind
Nor would they wish you whittled down like a stick
To pick the stony teeth in the open mouth of abject misery,
Daily, until you are nothing left.
No one dead who loved you
Would want your still-breathing carcass
To be lost in the wilderness
That spans the two worlds of the living and the dead,
Where you are neither dead nor living.
They would not applaud your misery,
But would weep to watch their loss
Made pointless by the waste of you.
The dead become a part of us; our skin, our bones, our thinking;
Their existence is continuous in us
And the best we do in everything
As we move on from the moment of their passing.
Step back
from the graveside where nothing flowers:
Do not undo the best they did for you.
Frieda Hughes
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