Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun (WH Auden) and a few more

I have been grieving.  Yes, that's what this is.  I'm grieving for a dear poetry friend whose daughter died yesterday of lung cancer.  His daughter was 50 years old and leaves behind three children and a wonderful husband.  My friend was with her as she took her last breaths.  No one should watch their child die.  If it really has to be, well then let us all be there to witness every moment of life left.  It does seem incredible that the world doesn't even hiccup at the loss.  But I guess this is a good thing; time continues propelling us forward, smoothing our losses day by day.  So I've been looking  for poems that explore loss and grieving.  Take a look

When Death Comes (Mary Oliver)
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


Stop All The Clocks (WH Auden)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Uses of Sorrow (Mary Oliver)

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
A box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
That this, too, was a gift.

AND

Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

(Izuma Shikibu)