Make Not A Monument Of Grief Poem by David McLansky

Make not a monument of grief
Mourning at its best is brief
Build no statues in the sky
It’s not the living who have died;

The dead are with us all the time
They move in memory as divine
They filled our hearts with tears of laughter
As if their death were no disaster.

We talk to them in empty rooms
We denounce them for having left too soon,
We hear the wisdom of their advice
They invoke in us the name of Christ

But if they filled our lives with hate,
Hatred slowly does abate;
Their death is as a prison term,
In their cell we slowly burn;

The best revenge is living well
Find love again for it dwells
Outside the prison of Death’s spell
Don’t extend this living hell.