In Remembrance of Pablo Sánchez-Iriarte Mendoza

Pablo, my oldest brother, enjoyed transcribing poems from different authors in his working art book. This one came in first place when I opened it, when going through his stuff after he passed away and would like to share it here:

If I be the first of us to die
by Nicholas Evans

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving,
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is a part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey.
The moment shared, the misteries explored,
The steady layering on intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand,
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we are, we are.
What we have, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together,
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And findding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footsteps in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.

I miss you dear brother, your jokes, your laughs, intelligence and the way you protected me.

With love,
Your little sis