For Cara, Vanessa, and Jeanie

A Celebration of Life
If I Die–Pablo Neruda
IfI die, survive me with such sheer force
that you awaken the furies of the pallid and the cold,
from south to south lift your indelible eyes,
from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth,
I don’t want your laughter or your steps to waver,
I don’t want y heritage of joy to die.
Don’t call upmy person. I am absent.
Live in my absence as if in a house.
Absence is a house so vast
that inside you will pass through it’s walls
and hang pictures on the air
Absence is a house so transparent
that I, lifeless, will see you, living,
and if you suffer, my love,I will die again.