Beauty for Ashes
Beauty for Ashes is a triptych that speak on loss. Each work uses poetry that speaks from a different perspective of the tragedy and each finds its way of coping and moving forward.
Echo I Did Not Die This Night
Yet come to me in dreams...
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope and love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter-sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brim-full of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death;
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Do not stand at my grave and cry...
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
The sound of rushing silence, sudden peace
As the grains of sand on the ocean shore
Or the stars, spread throughout the sky,
May the measure of your love abound even more
This night
Like the comfort in a melody,
Alullaby, or song,
May grace overflow
This night
Like a stream of quiet water
Flowing deep within your soul
The sound of rushing silence
Sudden peace
As peace and joy pervade your heart
Let sorrow fade away.
May hope be restored
This night.