If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Excerpt from Dejection:An Ode by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

But thou, my dear! (dear indeed though art,
My Comforter, a Heart within my Heart!)
Thou, and the Few, we love, tho' few ye be,
Make up a World of Hopes and Fears for me.
And if Affliction, or distemp'ring Pain,
Or wayward Chance befall you, I complain
Not that I mourn — O Friends, most dear! most true!
Methinks to weep with you
Were better far tham to rejoicd alone —

Metaphors by Sarah Quil

If I was a mountain

That soared towards the sky,

With craggy snow caps

And stormy grey eyes-

Then you'd be the clouds

That swaddled my peak,

That silenced my thunder

When I tried to speak.

If I was the earth

The desert, in fact:

With arid dry soil

And mud, dried and cracked-

You'd be the rain

The downpour that soothed;

The balm to my bruises,

Relief to my wounds.

If I was the Moon

In the indigo night,

With stars as my blanket

And silver; my light-

Well you'd be the Sun

Just always behind

That lent me your glow

And caused me to shine.

A Thousand Winds by Mary Elizabeth Frye

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 sunlight 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.

My Favorite Story by Brandi R Lowry

Saying goodbye
To someone you love
Is like reading the final page
Of an amazing book.

As the last chapter ends
You begin to notice
Just how beautiful
And perfect
The plot always was.

You appreciate the joy
And even the pain
As you read and thumb
Through every page.

Finally understanding
The moral of the story,
You realize you've reached
The end of this journey.

Although the last sentence
Is the most difficult to read
Another great book awaits
Once you turn the final page.

Eventually you may stumble
Upon yet another great find.
Or maybe you'll return
To the book you left behind.

You may just discover
Once all is said and done
That this particular book
Was your favorite story
All along.

The Look by Sara Teasdale

STEPHON kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Stephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

Often Rebuked by Emily Bronte

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.