Hopi Prayer...

[Guest guest]

A few months back when I was visiting my brother,

I went to a cemetary next to the college dorm I used

to live in. It had always given me the creeps then

and I never went in there. This time, I made a special

trip there and took some photos, while my boys ran

around the cemetary. Mom of the year, eh?

 

The photos were playing in my mind, as to what

to put them with, when a few days ago, I was in someone's

office and saw a print on the wall...

 

http://www.omshaantih.com/Poetry/Hopi%20Prayer/1.htm

 

Love,

 

Joyce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Beautiful as it is it is not Hopi.

 

Here is the best information I could find:

 

Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-), poem first published in 1932.

 

Do not Stand at my Grave and Weep

 

 

Version 1 (revised by another hand?)

 

1 Do not stand at my grave and weep

2 I am not there. I do not sleep.

3 I am a thousand winds that blow

4 I am the diamond glints on snow.

5 I am the sunlight on ripened grain

6 I am the gentle autumn rain.

7 When you awaken in the morning's hush,

8 I am the swift uplifting rush

9 Of quiet birds in circled flight.

10 I am the soft stars that shine at night.

11 Do not stand at my grave and cry.

12 I am not there: I did not die

 

 

Version 2 (original?)

 

1 Do not stand at my grave and weep,

2 I am not there, I do not sleep.

3 I am a thousand winds that blow,

4 I am the softly falling snow.

5 I am the gentle showers of rain,

6 I am the fields of ripening grain.

7 I am in the morning hush,

8 I am in the graceful rush

9 Of beautiful birds in circling flight.

10 I am the starshine of the night.

11 I am in the flowers that bloom,

12 I am in a quiet room.

13 I am in the birds that sing,

14 I am in each lovely thing.

15 Do not stand at my grave and cry,

16 I am not there -- I do not die.

 

Notes

 

1] Version 1 may be what the Federal Printing Press produced as a

postcard for Margaret Scharzkopf's parents' friends. It differs from

Version 2, claimed by Frye in 2000 as her original, to judge by what

she read from that for Kelly Ryan on the Ideas interview, lines 11-14

and the present tense "do" in line 16.

 

---------------

 

Online text copyright © 2003, Ian Lancashire for the Department of

English, University of Toronto.

Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology

Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

 

Original text: (1) Version 1: unpublished, except as postcard, for

which see "A Poetic Journey," Ideas (CBC Radio One, May 10, 2000).

URL: http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/ideas/poetic_journey/ . The

text of Frye's poem is taken from the postcard reproduced on this

site, ca. 1932. (2) Version 2: Ideals Magazine (ca. 2000); reproduced

at www.magicinterludes.net/snowyowlet/farewell.html (2001).

First publication date: 1932

RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire

RP edition: 2002

Recent editing: 1:2002/8/16

 

Composition date: 1932

Form: couplets

 

 

 

, "Lady Joyce" <shaantih@c...>

wrote:

> A few months back when I was visiting my brother,

> I went to a cemetary next to the college dorm I used

> to live in. It had always given me the creeps then

> and I never went in there. This time, I made a special

> trip there and took some photos, while my boys ran

> around the cemetary. Mom of the year, eh?

>

> The photos were playing in my mind, as to what

> to put them with, when a few days ago, I was in someone's

> office and saw a print on the wall...

>

> http://www.omshaantih.com/Poetry/Hopi%20Prayer/1.htm

>

> Love,

>

> Joyce

>

>

>

>

>

>