The Persistence of Memory

This poem is testament that in a lifetime cluttered with actions and thoughts - physical and mental creations - it is never possible to know what will live on past that life. It reaffirms the need to live as much of life with authenticity as possible, because that which is created in even a seemingly innocuous unit of time may be that which endures.

It is a poem written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye. A friend had been concerned about her mother, who was ill in Germany, but had been warned not to return home because of increasing anti-Semitic unrest. When her mother died, the heartbroken young woman told Frye that she never had the chance to “stand by my mother’s grave and shed a tear”. Frye, who had never written any poetry, found herself composing a piece of verse on a brown paper shopping bag.

Frye circulated the poem privately, never publishing or copyrighting it. She wrote other poems, but this, her first, has been recited at funerals and on other appropriate occasions around the world for 60 years.

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.