The Day Will Come Poem by Richard Stopps

Your death will come on some plain afternoon,
No trumpet blown, no warning in the air -
But just the chores half - done, a quiet noon,
A chair pulled out, and no one sitting there.

The fence will lean as it has always leaned,
The gate will creak the same familiar cry;
The field, indifferent, stays as it has been,
And crows will mark the hours that pass you by.

The list you kept will keep its stubborn length,
Uncrossed, unheeded by the turning sun;
No hand will finish what was left in strength -
The work goes on, though you are done.

So take the road that wanders past the hill,
And linger where the brook runs soft and slow;
For life is less the harvest than the will
To pause, and feel the simple things we know.

Speak kindly while the light is still your own,
Hold close the hands that time would soon undo;
For death arrives as quiet as a stone -
And life is all the noise we make as we pass through