The Friend We Have Not Met Quotes

“Farewell, my dearest. You have but gone ahead...
but I shall follow, and run, at last, again into your arms...
and laugh away the years that came between.”
― Joan Walsh Anglund, The Friend We Have Not Met: Poems of Consolation

“Death is a friend we have not met,
a voice we have not heard,
a face we have not seen.

Death is a slipping away,
a going beyond
a stepping through.

It is a fading,
as light slips from the sky at dusk,
tenderly, and with a silent beauty.

It is a leaf caught in the current,
too far for us to reach from shore.

It is a ship setting sail at dawn,
to lands we do not know,
and with friends we cannot follow.

It is a bird set free from a cage,
flying one last flight across our horizon
before we lose it to the clouds.

Death is the fall of a rose,
the drop of a sparrow,
the sigh of a barren bough.

It is a letting go,
a quieting of fear,
and a haven from pain.

Death is a coming home after a long journey.
It is a safe harbor after many storms,
and a sweet quiet rest after great labor.

Death is a road we have not walked.
a place we have not seen,
a friend we have not met.

It is a going and a coming,
a departure,
and an arrival.

an end and a beginning.”
― Joan Walsh Anglund, The Friend We Have Not Met: Poems of Consolation

“Self is that which dies...
Spirit is that which lives...
forever.”
― Joan Walsh Anglund, The Friend We Have Not Met: Poems of Consolation