Curated original poetry
For a service, choose language the room can follow on first hearing. Let the relationship and the person's character guide the tone rather than searching for a universal grief.
These pieces are shown in full so you can read the collection before choosing one to save, print, hear aloud, or share.
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36 poems
by The Wild Voice · 14 lines
On your birthday, I plant nothing new. I weed around the lavender
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
Do not call the life small because the days were few. A match burns briefly
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
We entered with flowers, photographs, folded programs. We left with the same things
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
After everyone goes home, the cups remain half-full, chairs turned toward conversations
Read, listen and shareby The Hearth Voice · 14 lines
Downstairs, foil lifts from macaroni, greens, beans cooked since morning.
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 12 lines
Before sunrise, the barn light came on because he did. Cattle shifted in the dark.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 9 lines
You were telling me about summer— a cabin, the lake, how this year we should finally go.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
We mark the day quietly. No candles. No wish forced through smoke.
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 9 lines
Mud dried on the boots in maps of the north field. One lace had been knotted twice.
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 10 lines
He knew each field by the way rain stood in it, which gate sagged,
Read, listen and shareby The Devotional Voice · 10 lines
God of the unfinished answer, meet us before dawn changes anything. Meet the ones whose grief
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 10 lines
His hat remains on the peg, rain-dark at the brim, a pale line where the sun
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 14 lines
The library writes deceased beside your name and closes the account.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
My mother's voicemail says hello with no knowledge of the future. She is probably in the garden,
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 10 lines
He read weather in swallows, in the ache of one knee, in cattle turning backs to rain.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 10 lines
Milk, lemons, soap, her handwriting leaning forward as if the paper were a hill.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 9 lines
We stop where the road bends west, where his name is tied to the fence on a strip of weathered cloth.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 12 lines
I bring no flowers. She preferred tomatoes, new pencils,
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 12 lines
Six men stand beside the hearse, each wearing the dark suit he hoped not to need this year.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
You died in March. By April, tulips opened as if the ground had not heard.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
Each birthday I grow older. My mother stays sixty-two, laughing in the last photograph
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
Someone left a coat on the back pew, navy wool, one loose button,
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 11 lines
The horse turns once at the familiar whistle, then lowers its head.
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 10 lines
He walked the fence at evening, not because the wire had changed, but because wind, cattle,
Read, listen and shareby The Hearth Voice · 14 lines
Aunt Louise places your church hat on the front pew, wide brim tilted toward the pulpit
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 14 lines
Your photograph fills the cover, the blue suit you saved for Sundays, your name printed larger
Read, listen and shareby The Wild Voice · 11 lines
The gate he built still drags one corner through the dust. Lift, then push,
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
The room was ready: small stars on the wall, blankets folded into clouds,
Read, listen and shareby The Hearth Voice · 13 lines
Your shoes remain by the door, one lace under the other heel. For weeks I step around them
Read, listen and shareby The Night Voice · 15 lines
You called about nothing: the bus was late, your soup had spilled,
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 11 lines
There is an order we pretend: old before young, winter after harvest,
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 10 lines
Your appointments remained: dentist, train, dinner with Sam, a haircut on Friday at four.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 12 lines
Do not hand me a reason. Do not polish the silence. Do not tell me heaven needed
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 14 lines
The question is simple for the person asking. I have learned several answers:
Read, listen and shareby The Devotional Voice · 14 lines
The soloist reached the line she had sung at other funerals and could not carry it today.
Read, listen and shareby The Quiet Voice · 10 lines
We signed beneath your photograph, our names suddenly evidence that we had stood in that room.
Read, listen and shareReader guide
For a service, choose language the room can follow on first hearing. Let the relationship and the person's character guide the tone rather than searching for a universal grief.
A poem can look right on a screen and feel wrong in the mouth. Read your shortlist aloud, notice where the voice catches, and choose the piece that sounds like something you could honestly give or say.
Use the original byline and link when sharing. For a public service, program, classroom, or publication, check the usage note and preserve the poem's line breaks.
Start with the intended use, then narrow by tone and length. A private message can be intimate; a public reading usually needs a clear opening, steady pace, and images listeners can understand immediately.
You may share an EveryPoem link or use the built-in personal print and share-card tools. Republishing the full text elsewhere or using it commercially requires permission.
Yes. Published pieces are original EveryPoem editorial works or approved contributor submissions. House-voice profiles explain how collaborative editorial bylines work.