[Rick Mullin]

Not sure where else to post this:

A friend of mine was asked to suggest a poem to be read at a funeral service. She turned to me for suggestions, and I turn to you. Of course she expressed a preference for something non-rhyming.... I told her no promises on that. Thanks in advance.

Rick

[Rick Mullin]

My immediate suggestion was that she look for a segment of Eliot's "Four Quartets". I read part of "Burnt Norton" at my mother's funeral. I told her I'd also consult the heavyweights. So I hope to hear your suggestions.

[Julie Steiner]

It's hard to pick poems for people who don't like poetry. So maybe stick with prose.

For my mother-in-law's funeral, we put the following quotation on the back of her prayer card, instead of an actual prayer. This prose passage had been posted near her dinner table since 1988, in a friend's calligraphy. Perhaps not a poem, but close enough, and almost everyone at the funeral had eaten dinner at her table and seen the quotation there. Maybe the idea will inspire your friend to choose another prose passage with special personal meaning.

"We will remember...all our lives. And even if we are occupied with important things, even if we attain honor or fall into misfortune—still let us remember how good it was here, when we were all together...united by a good and kind feeling, which made us, for the time...perhaps better than we are." —Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

[Carl Copeland]

If it’s for a mother (and not only), this is the best I’ve seen—by Czech poet Vladimír Holan, translated by George Theiner. I think it was David Callin who put me on to it.


Resurrection

Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened
by a terrifying clamour of trumpets?
Forgive me God, but I console myself
that the beginning and resurrection of all of us dead
will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.

After that we’ll remain lying down a while …
The first to get up
will be Mother … We’ll hear her
quietly laying the fire,
quietly putting the kettle on the stove
and cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.
We’ll be home once more.

[Rick Mullin]

Thanks Carl and Julie,

I edited down my initial entry here. This is a funeral for a friend.

[E. Shaun Russell]

I immediately think of Auden's "Funeral Blues," one of the best occasional poems I know. Pretty sure your friend can just change the gendered pronouns if needed.

[Roger Slater]

Something from Adonais? There's lots to choose from, but maybe these lines, which are among my favorite lines of poetry ever written:

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-colour'd glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.

[Orwn Acra]

It's hard to say, Rick, because of course we don't know your friend or your friend's friend who passed, or how an audience might take a poem such as this:

Lebensweisheitspielerei

Weaker and weaker, the sunlight falls
In the afternoon. The proud and the strong
Have departed.

Those that are left are the unaccomplished,
The finally human,
Natives of a dwindled sphere.

Their indigence is an indigence
That is an indigence of the light,
A stellar pallor that hangs on the threads.

Little by little, the poverty
Of autumnal space becomes
A look, a few words spoken.

Each person completely touches us
With what he is and as he is,
In the stale grandeur of annihilation.

which is by Wallace Stevens. Hope to see you tomorrow at Carmine...