National Poetry Month - Pablo Neruda

Back in 1996, right after Roby died, I found Marianne Williamson - an author and lecturer - her work helped me immensely.  Her website was one of the first I found in one of my first experiences "surfing the net". I didn't even have internet at home - I was using the Portland State University lab.  I was struggling with my grief and I posted something on the website (it was so different then...more like a listserv, I think).  Someone read what I posted and sent me this poem.  I have a copy of the email they sent me framed and hung on the wall.  It is one of my favorites.

Sonnet LXXXIX
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the 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 live 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 walk 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.
~Pablo Neruda