Ritueelbegeleider.nl
Poems that comfort
Are you looking for a poem that offers comfort in grief? Here you will find a number of beautiful examples. Copy them onto your sympathy card, or write them to someone who has lost a loved one.
Words, especially when carefully chosen, have the power to comfort. They do this not by avoiding the sorrow, but by shining a light on it.
Because you can also be sad about an animal, I have also included a translation of Cat Heaven with the poems.
Would you like to use a poem? Please mention the writer. And would you like to publish one online or in print? Then contact me.
contact us
Night
Sometimes life is night
around me
I wear the darkness
even on my face
Do you seek me out and wait with me
do you soften me
do you reflect
the Light?
Always where we are
You are no longer
where you were
but are now always
where we are
Trees
If people are trees
their feet the roots
their legs as trunks
gnarled character
heads full of dreams
the crown on the work.
If people are trees
feelings, thoughts
as birds hidden
among the leaves
your heart sometimes hears them
often you don't see them.
If people are trees
branches and roots stretched
to heaven and earth
to God and to people
however they fall
they are
caught.
- Kaj van der Plas
Don't tell them I'm sleeping
Don't tell them I'm sleeping
because sleep is a friend
so it doesn't do such a thing.
And I am also not a star
that sees them willingly
because a star is too far.
Is it really better this way?
The pain is over
but there is nowhere heaven
where we are not together.
Don't tell them what I am,
where I am, it is a secret.
A secret is a seed
that floats on the wind
without you knowing it
finds a small hollow
nestles there and grows
and then just when you thought
that the night
never goes away
like a flower
smiles at you.
- Kaj van der Plas
Letting go
Hey you there, on the shore,
step in with me for a moment
and silently give me the confidence
that water, wind, the waves
will not knock me head over heels
but carry me on their stream endlessly
and beyond the horizon
where we look at each other.
If the waves get heads
and we go sharp to the wind
and my arms and hands get tired
-will you take rudder and sheet?
- Kaj van der Plas
Departure
I boarded
I gently pushed myself away from the shore
and then floated on the carrying water.
I don't know where the wind came from
but it gently carries me to later.
You see: more than hull and rudder and rope and sail is not needed
and trust that the blowing,
that your floating will
calm and sure
carefree.
- Kaj van der Plas
Death is nothing at all
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
What we were to each other,
we still are.
Call me by my familiar name.
Talk to me with the same ease
as you always did.
Put nothing different in your voice.
Do not be overly serious or worried.
Laugh as we always laughed –
all those little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be the most common word
as it always was.
Pronounce it without emphasis,
without a trace of shadow in it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it always was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Is death not just a negligible moment?
Why should I be out of your heart
because I am out of your sight?
I'm waiting for you,
for an interim,
somewhere very close,
just around the corner.
Everything is fine.
Nothing is over, nothing lost.
A short moment and everything will be as it was.
How we will laugh at the trouble of saying goodbye
when we meet again!
Henry Scott Holland
translation Kaj van der Plas
The Cat Heaven
The road to her heaven is a field of green grass,
full of creatures and so much to see!
Poes sneaks, hunts and jumps, so it takes a long time
and that's allowed because she has fun for ten.
On the other side at a yellow golden door
an angel patiently keeps watch
And when Poes arrives, she gets a kiss
and some milk and a stroke through her fur.
There are trees very thick, perfect for a cat:
house-high and as green as a hedge.
But no cat ever sits there meowing stuck on a branch,
because she floats down as she wants.
Toys too, everywhere, and of every kind
there are a hundred in a row.
There are balls and bubbles and balls of wool,
feathers float constantly by.
And of course the angels, with a lap nice and soft,
on which kittens purr very loudly.
The angels stroke their noses and ears,
and hum softly to themselves.
If a cat is hungry, then there is God's table
which is full of delicious fish:
Salmon and tuna, and cans of sardines,
the tastiest food there is.
In their heavenly home they are spoiled:
God just lets them on his bed.
He walks through His garden, with His beautiful Book
and a kitten asleep on his hat.
If a cat wants to, she looks over the edge,
sees the earth so peaceful and blue.
She looks at the house where she once lived
with the people she loves so much.
Cats know heaven, they know the way,
they know where to go and very quickly
they travel along the moon and the sun and the stars
and curl up nicely with God.
Cynthia Rylant - Cat Heaven
translation Kaj van der Plas
Everything is
And now,
now that it's so far.
Now it won't be long,
and the wind lies forever.
Now everything is,
now everything is.
And maybe,
maybe too late.
Maybe forever.
As a stranger,
as a friend.
Maybe goodbye,
maybe not.
How in every face,
and how the first time,
and how everything slowly again,
sinks to the bottom.
How love is.
How life must.
How farewell sounds.
What I know,
what I am no longer.
Where I falter in belief,
how the people are.
In their heart.
In their head.
And what sleeps under the ground,
and waits with silent roots.
On the very first day,
until the light fills her lungs.
Breathe out. Breathe in.
There is nothing else,
there is nothing else.
Only love remains,
that is all there is.
Everything is.
Spinvis - Train Fire Dawn
Comforting poems help
You don't always have to come up with your own text for someone who has lost a loved one.
Just choose a beautiful and appealing poem, and write that in your own handwriting on the card.
You will notice that it is received with gratitude!
Would you like to send a special card, with a warm and sincere look?
Then take a look in the webshop for a few beautiful examples.
to webshop
Example 3:
The speech of Liz at the funeral of her mother Debora
My name is Liz, I am the second daughter of Ben and Debora. I start with a poem, it is called Leaving and is by Rutger Kopland
Leaving
Leaving is something else
than sneaking out of the house
softly closing the door
behind your existence and not
returning. You stay
someone who is waited for.
Leaving can be described as
a kind of staying. Nobody
waits because you are still there.
Nobody says goodbye
because you are not leaving.
In a strange way, this poem puts into words how we as a family experienced the illness and death of our mother and wife Debora. Her illness started insidiously. Little pieces of memory, small pieces of interest in the world, in the people around her, disappeared on tiptoe. And eventually there came that difficult moment when she could no longer live at home and we brought her to Het Zonneheem.
You visited her so faithfully there dad. And every time you came there it seemed as if she had been waiting for you. "Are you finally there, Ben?" And you who then said: "I am always there." Your joke. Fine and painful. And eventually that recognition also slipped out the door, first from us her daughters and eventually also from her Ben. We remember her so differently. Active, present, full of attention. Anything but quiet. If you came to a family gathering, whether it was that of the Wachters or the Van Dammen, you immediately heard if mom and dad were already there when you came in. You recognized her laugh out of thousands, above everything.
The roles in the family were clearly divided. Ben worked, made long days and made a career. Debora took care of the house and for us as children. Only when I was in high school did I discover how smart she actually was. Up to and including the 6th she could help me with all subjects, whether it was French or Mathematics. I once asked her if she hadn't wanted to continue studying earlier. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said: oh, child, in hindsight it is quiet living, and I am very happy though.
And she was. If anyone had a talent for being happy, it was Debora. Exuberantly happy. We couldn't find a photo for this morning on which she wasn't seen smiling broadly.
Dear mom, you remain someone who is waited for. We say goodbye to you this morning. And yet you stay.
Farewell.
Leaving
Leaving is something else
than sneaking out of the house
softly closing the door
behind your existence and not
returning. You stay
someone who is waited for.
Leaving can be described as
a kind of staying. Nobody
waits because you are still there.
Nobody says goodbye
because you are not leaving.
In a strange way, this poem puts into words how we as a family experienced the illness and death of our mother and wife Debora. Her illness started insidiously. Little pieces of memory, small pieces of interest in the world, in the people around her, disappeared on tiptoe. And eventually there came that difficult moment when she could no longer live at home and we brought her to Het Zonneheem.
You visited her so faithfully there dad. And every time you came there it seemed as if she had been waiting for you. "Are you finally there, Ben?" And you who then said: "I am always there." Your joke. Fine and painful. And eventually that recognition also slipped out the door, first from us her daughters and eventually also from her Ben. We remember her so differently. Active, present, full of attention. Anything but quiet. If you came to a family gathering, whether it was that of the Wachters or the Van Dammen, you immediately heard if mom and dad were already there when you came in. You recognized her laugh out of thousands, above everything.
The roles in the family were clearly divided. Ben worked, made long days and made a career. Debora took care of the house and for us as children. Only when I was in high school did I discover how smart she actually was. Up to and including the 6th she could help me with all subjects, whether it was French or Mathematics. I once asked her if she hadn't wanted to continue studying earlier. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said: oh, child, in hindsight it is quiet living, and I am very happy though.
And she was. If anyone had a talent for being happy, it was Debora. Exuberantly happy. We couldn't find a photo for this morning on which she wasn't seen smiling broadly.
Dear mom, you remain someone who is waited for. We say goodbye to you this morning. And yet you stay.
Farewell.