a poem

We chose this to go in the program at Bill's funeral services:

A Parable of Immortality

I am standing by the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch until at last
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sun and sky come down
to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!"
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side and
just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the places of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There she goes!"

there are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready
to take up the glad shout:
"Here she comes!"

-Henry Van Dyke