Advice and help please poetic knowledge required!!

Hi Guys,

I really need some help, a workmate of mine has just lost her father to a very debilitating and slow condition and they are having the funeral next week, she was asking me if I know of a poem about loss that she could read at the funeral to express happiness/sadness etc

I'm not to up on this genre, I've written a few but none that's really applicable, her husband and his brother and sisters are really struggling to find anything so I said I'd reach out to the community and try to help them out, so ANY suggestions on something she could read out would be greatly appreciated and make this sad time for them a little easier.

Thank you in advance SO much,

This thread inspired me to throw together a simple quick rhyme

http://www.friendship-poems.com/poems.php?id=1252426

Perhaps the most well known:

A poem 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 star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there; I did not die.

Jane's suggestion is amazing.

You might also excerpt Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant:

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice ...
Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, ...
To mix for ever with the elements, ...
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent.
Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. ...
All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. ...
As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them ...
Thou go ... sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

I do not know any but sympathy goes out to your friend.
Em

Thank you guys so much for your input it is very much appreciated