Need help with a poem

[Empusa]

My mum died on Thursday, and I need a poem to read at her funeral next Friday. :(

Seeing as I'm 36 weeks pregnant I really wanted something that comes as close to saying "I understand how much you did for me" as possible.

If anyone knows any good poems it would mean a lot to me..

I am so very sorry for your loss. You may find something here

I read one about how you spend you 'dash' at my uncles funeral - it really described the way he lived his life, not for money or recognition but just being a good person.

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend,

He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From beginning to the end.
He noted that first came her date of birth
And spoke the following with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth. . .
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not how much we own;
The cars. . . the house. . .the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

This is a version of it, there is a longer one but this is the part I read.

I am so sorry for your loss Empusa. A poem that comes to mind is one by Christina Rossetti - I think it's called Remember (?).

I am so so sorry for your loss too. I can't imagine how terribly bereft you must be feeling, especially so with the birth of your baby so close.

I love the poet Paulo Nuruda. He wrote a book of sonnetts for his wife after she had died and they are the most beautiful poems ever.

One of my favourites is this:

If I die, survive me with such a pure force
you make the pallor and the coldness rage;
flash your indelible eyes from south to south,
from sun to sun, till your mouth sings like a guitar.

I don't want your laugh or your footsteps to waver,
I don't want my legacy of happiness to die;
don't call to my breast: I'm not there.
Live in my absence as in a house.

Absence is such a large house
that you'll walk through the walls,
hang pictures in sheer air.

Absence is such a transparent house
that even being dead I will see you there,
and if you suffer, Love, I'll die a second time.

And this is one of his others which is equally beautiful.....

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.

I want you to love while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you
to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walked on.

I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else
to continue to flourish, full-flowered:

so that you can reach everything my love directs you to,
so that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song.

None of the poems have names - this one is just LXXXIX and the first one was XCIV from the section called Night in his 100 Love Sonnets (Cien sonetos de amor)

I hope you find at least some comfort in his words. x

Thank you everyone, those are some lovely poems to choose from.