Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep Summary

A gentle breeze on a crisp fall morning passes through the windows in the kitchen. The wind blows the chimes on the porch and they play a beautiful melody. Off in the distance, the first snow storm of winter begins to brew. Many every day happenings, such as these, often help us to remember or feel a loved one’s presence. This presence in particular, is one of someone that is no longer living. “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep,” argues that a person doesn’t really disappear from the world after death; instead Elizabeth Frye creates metaphors of the passing member and shows how the loved one continues to live on through simple everyday occurrences in nature, even though the body is no longer present. Sometimes the presence of a loved one is as noticeable as a breeze in nature. The poem tends to pass through the seasons of the year, similarly to that of a body nearing the end of its life passage. However, the author does not depict death as the end of life, but the beginning of another. For instance, lines 1 and 2 of the poem introduce the writer as someone that has already passed through the …show more content…
After Frye explains to the reader that she is still living, she goes on to discuss where her mourners can locate her presence. Frye uses multiple metaphors throughout her poem relating different movements in nature to different acts of loved ones soul that lives on. In particular, Frye states she is, “the sunlight on ripened grain.” The term ripened that is referring to the grain is representing that death will soon be there, and that the grain will be demolished by the new life that comes after death. She promises her readers that she can be seen through acts of nature such as, “winds that blow” and “gentle autumn rain.” The rain is also another symbol representing the growth of the new life that is about to begin after