Wednesday, May 04, 2011

I am standing upon the seashore

I love this poem. I read it once on a wall hanging and it just stuck with me. I was thinking about it a few months ago. I looked it up and put it into a blog post to share, but never published it because it didn't seem quite appropriate to just randomly share a poem about death. Recently one of Robert's high school friends lost their little girl in an accident and we have been thinking about them and about death and eternal families. We're grateful that we know that life goes on after death, and that because of our temple covenants and if we live worthy, no matter what may happen to each of us we will be a family forever. So it seems appropriate now to share this poem and imagine the shouts of "Here she comes!" that were recently heard in heaven.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: "There! She's gone!"

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not is her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There! She's gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!" And such is dying.

No comments: