Help a loved one find comfort in life's final moments

During the final days of one of our parents’ lives, we found ourselves sitting quietly, not knowing what to say. The silence was heavy. Words felt too small, too inadequate.

So we turned to poetry.

We searched for poems that could carry the weight of goodbye—something tender, reverent, human. But what we found was either too clinical, too abstract, or simply not enough. The sensitivity of the moment needed something more.

So we began putting together our own.

Each day, we read aloud poems out together with simple, heartfelt verses that helped soothe the space between us. And in those quiet readings, our parent grew calm. The room grew peaceful. And when he rested, it felt like he was carried gently, in words.

That experience changed us. We knew that these poems made a difference.
We realized poetry could be a bridge between the living and the dying, a gentle way to hold what’s too hard to say.

And we wanted to share that with the world.

Our hope is simple: that others rediscover the power of poetry during life’s most tender, sacred moments. That these words bring you peace, presence, and perhaps even a sense of grace.

— Irna & Sean
Founders of Poems for the Dying