16+ Poems About Dead Aunt: Message Of Grief And Loss

Many aunts hold a special role in the hearts of their nieces and nephews. The aunt usually gives good advices, is unbiased, and is a great friend. Not only that, the aunt has the role of a mother who nurture, teach and educate the children. From that, it forms an indivisible bond.

Therefore, dealing with the loss of an aunt is difficult, and it takes a long time for children to forget their aunt in their minds and lives. That loss also leads to nostalgia and regrets, leaving behind a painful memory, tears and wounds that are hard to heal.

Poems about the aunt’s death are the best way to remember, say goodbye and reminisce about shared stories that can help an aunt live on forever in her memory. Aunt funeral poems are also a way to honor the value of life and relationships in a family, a way to confirm special feelings for the dead aunt.

1, My Aunts © Adam Zagajewski

Always caught up in what they called
the practical side of life
(theory was for Plato),
up to their elbows in furniture, in bedding,
in cupboards and kitchen gardens,
they never neglected the lavender sachets
that turned a linen closet to a meadow.

The practical side of life,
like the Moon’s unlighted face,
didn’t lack for mysteries;
when Christmastime drew near,
life became pure praxis
and resided temporarily in hallways,
took refuge in suitcases and satchels.

And when somebody died–it happened
even in our family, alas–
my aunts, preoccupied
with death’s practical side,
forgot at last about the lavender,
whose frantic scent bloomed selflessly
beneath a heavy snow of sheets.
Don’t just do something, sit there.
And so I have, so I have,
the seasons curling around me like smoke,
Gone to the end of the earth and back without sound.

2, Visitation for an Aunt in Holland © Alyda Faber

All the time in the world,
she said.
Enough with hurrying out the door
for doctor’s appointments, parties, trains.
No more departures.
But you, the internal fire drill
says find the exits.
She would give you some of her silence
if you could carry it.

Washed and dressed by her husband
and sons, lipstick lightly applied.
For now, she’s chilled
and taken out for family viewing.

Simple fabric trimmed with cord
lines the box where she lies
unlike the sheen pillows in North American coffins
lending a wedding party lustre to death’s transactions.
One eyelid peeks an eye,
teeth piano keys at rest.
Your clamouring ebbs in her presence.

You know you belong to sound
above the silence buried here
between hedgerows bordering neighbourly graves.
A few bees still visit sagging floral
arrangements. The horizon rips
as a stealth fighter takes off on a training run
and north of the cemetery
kennelled dogs bark in a hollow room.

And you give yourself up to departure again.
One moment
the train waits in the station,
then its ticking wheels pass the city edging the tracks
and then fields, cattle and sheep, rush by,
and you give yourself up to the speed of departure
again and again.

3, My Aunt © Megan Stokes

I thought I saw her face today
In the sparkle of the morning sun.
And then I heard the angel say,
“Her work on earth is done.”

I thought I heard her voice today
Then laugh her hearty laugh.
And then I heard the angel say,
“There’s peace, little one, at last.”

I thought I felt her touch today
In the breeze that rustled by.
And then I heard the angel say,
“The spirit never dies.”

I thought that she had left me
For the stars so far above.
And then I heard the angel say,
“She left you with her love.”

I thought that I would miss her
And never find my way.
And then I heard the angel say,
“She’s with you every day.”

4, My Aunt Jean © Joan C. Johnson

I close my eyes as I wipe a tear.
I just keep wishing you were still here.
I will hold all the memories deep in my heart.
Through these memories we’ll never part.

I close my eyes as I wipe a tear.
I just keep wishing this pain would disappear.
I didn’t get the chance to say my last goodbye.
I just didn’t think you could ever die.

I close my eyes as I wipe a tear.
All of your love I will always hold near.
In my heart and my mind I will never be alone.
When my time comes……
I will meet you in heaven!
WE LOVE AND MISS YOU!

5, The Aunts © Joyce Sutphen

I like it when they get together
and talk in voices that sound
like apple trees and grape vines,

and some of them wear hats
and go to Arizona in the winter,
and they all like to play cards.

They will always be the ones
who say “It is time to go now,”
even as we linger at the door,

or stand by the waiting cars, they
remember someone—an uncle we
never knew—and sigh, all

of them together, like wind
in the oak trees behind the farm
where they grew up—a place

I remember—especially
the hen house and the soft
clucking that filled the sunlit yard.

6, Aunt Helen © T.S. Eliot

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
And silence at her end of the street.
The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet —
He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.
The dogs were handsomely provided for,
But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.
The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees —
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

7, Two Aunts © Thomas James

When I feel the old hunger coming on,
I think of my two great-aunts,
A farmer’s daughters,
Speaking into the dusk in North Dakota.
I imagine the dark baron
Riding out of their mouths,
Thick-skinned and girded
Against disaster, swathed
In cuirass and chainmail and a curse.
My hunger was theirs
Too long ago. It swims in my blood,
Groping for a foothold.
It is the dark I thrust my tongue against,
The wine and the delicate symphony
That makes my head tick so exquisitely
Tonight. My ladies,
My dusky girls, I see you
With your bustles puffed up like life preservers,
Your needlepoint rose garden,
Your George Eliot coiffures,
Your flounces gathered like an 1890s valentine.
You both took heroin.
Your father never noticed.
You sprinkled it in your oatmeal,
Embroidered doilies with it,
Ate it like a last supper
At midnight. I know what you meant.
There was always the hunger,
The death of small things
Somewhere in your body,
The children that would never
Take place in either of you.
You were a garden of lost letters.
A lust inhabited your veins.
My addicts,
The village spoke of you.
Under your parasols, two rose windows,
The world swam with color.
Riding the monotonous hills at daybreak,
You escaped the indecisions
Your blood has handed down
To me. You rode your father’s spotted horses
As if they might have ferried you
Over an edge, a dark mouth in the distance.
I see you ride the black hills of my mind,
Sidesaddle, gowned in lemon silk,
Galloping
In your laced-up flesh, completely unaware
Of something I inherited,
The doubt,
The fear,
The needle point of speech,
The hunger you passed down that I
Possess.

8, Aunt Haint © Ed Roberson

She would post herself in the way
in lines headed to transfer stops, to change,
or haunt intersections with four way full
scarecrow indecision, stop

on the corners of streets, and in the aisles
of buses, preaching only that
which has never left these crossings for road,
for choice  — the angry fear. She seats

at the feasts  — Thanksgiving, any
holiday, any family place
setting   — the hunger of others’
satisfaction for herself, she seeks it

said this is what she deserves, if only
of herself. What she thinks she thinks
needs to be said whatever anyone
else thinks to be honest. So there

she sings from that part of the door
she’s never got through, the eye
which requires it all taken off down
all blown away to get through to

that still naked-ness of clear again
even if she’s not still, the voice comes through
that if we could listen as she is equally
raw hear with meat and gut below the skin,

beyond the last violence,
to the silence just before
the bone if we could still hear there
we’d hear

2

What hand can you offer one wanting
just to get even for what it doesn’t know what,

just to take out what it feels on someone else
to hurt because it can’t get at where it hurts itself

to have to see to clear like a movie fakes
done seeing sharper than thought can cut to it;

what hand can you offer one that doesn’t know even
as a balance any other than more as my half and

who counts itself that much more
and that more proofless multiple unanswerably human hurts

because it can’t figure out a figure to answer how it wants
so count doesn’t count higher than want

and want also falls short enough to take someone down
for it

but there is no size for another to be cut down to but none
but death this is so frustrating

3

You see me get the hell away from her
don’t you quick as I can and I bein nice
she act all girlfriend but that bitch dangerous

she pull so much rotten shit on peoples
she due to get her ass killed anytime
and I don’t tend to be nowhere near round

I ain’t getting cut down just for standin
next to her I ain’t all that innocent
but I don’t be lookin for nothing I don’t deserve

9, Aunt Joe Learns to Keep Her Balance © Jeanne Murray Walker

Everything I need arrives in time—sunlight,
a little breeze at night, dancing music,
as though a kind aunt were lending me her things,
so I began to lend mine too. Now I’m famous for it.
My pie plates turn up at church suppers,
my fishing lures are drying on Briske’s grass,
Last week I sent my cat to be someone else’s mouser
and now her eyes glow like flashlights
from the neighbor’s basement windows. Objects blow
back and forth among us in an erratic trade wind.
Sometimes I have too much, sometimes too little.
Sitting on my porch, I count my rain hats.
All afternoon people have returned them.
I look up. The sky lowers and growls.
Here comes Mrs. Sorensen on her bicycle wearing
three rain hats, waving an umbrella for me.
She’s old enough to be my mother, but
she still tips dangerously, first to one side
then to the other. I try to memorize it,
how she keeps her balance.

10, Dedicated To My Aunt © Natalyvasquez

Life is too short.
It’s not enough,
but we must understand
that if we live it in love and faith,
a road will be made
for the day we pass away.
We can take it
and wait at the end.
for those who once and always loved me,
I will meet.

Your beautiful eyes,
so big and round,
showed love,
showed laughter,
showed happiness,
showed sadness,
but we will remember you as the happy, beautiful women you were,
the one who once cried for love,
the one who once laughed.
I love you, my dear.
We will miss you,
but please wait.
We will meet once again
in the kingdom of heaven
where no pain we will feel.

11, What My Aunt Meant To Me © Author Unknown

Aunts have no wands or wings,
So they work with wisdom, love, and things.
Having taken on this role,
You loved me right down to my soul.

You offered kindness
And greetings with a hug and kiss,
Each freely out of love which I will miss.

I chose a twinkling star in the sky at night ,
To say a prayer for you to it’s bright light.
You’re in God’s Heavens now and no longer in pain,
In my thoughts, you’ll always remain

How lucky I was,
How blessed I’ve been,
You were more than my Aunt,
You were also my friend.

I love you and miss you Aunty [insert her name]

12, My Aunt © Author Unknown

My aunt was a woman who had smiles to brighten your days,
who always made you feel good with her warm words of praise.
And what’s more she knew
what to do to make wishes come true.
She was my aunt.

My aunt was someone who always had good stories to tell,
but just as importantly she knew how to be a good listener as well.
She was patient and kind
and the very best friend you could ever hope to find.
She was no ordinary person.

And I’m proud to tell the world that [Your aunt’s name here] Was my aunt.

13, Death Of My Aunt © Abduweli Eysa Wapayi

To my aunt

If there is a God who listens to me now
just hope him or her do me a favor
today is a day that sadden my mother
today is a day that sadly knifed my mother’s heart
I think I will never know how to I should start.

Life is a journey that gives good and bad for us
on this way we will be called bad or good

I wish the one who has left us was called good
cuz we all believe good ones has to be in heaven…

I am far from my mother, and my aunt’s funeral
sweet memories and love-full arms leaving me
I called my mother, my brothers and sisters
they all thought good life’s taken by the only creator…

Her face was so warm, her arms were so hard and soft
I couldn’t imagine how has the destiny done

we all hope to make beautiful home and great earth
I deeply wondered why the good people stays here so short
I hope I can pray to my God, and all ours God
I hope I can move him or her by my true thought and heart.

14, Aunt Jane © Robert William Service

When Aunt Jane died we hunted round,
And money everywhere we found.
How much I do not care to say,
But no death duties will we pay,
And Aunt Jane will be well content
We bilked the bloody Government.

While others spent she loved to save,
But couldn’t take it to her grave.
While others save we love to spend;
She hated us but in the end
Because she left no Testament
To us all her possessions went.

That is to say they did not find
A lawyer’s Will of any kind.
Yet there was one in her own hand,
A Home for Ailing Cats she planned.
Well, you can understand my ire:
Promptly I put it in the fire.

In misery she chose to die,
Yet we will make her money fly.
And as we mourn for poor Aunt Jane
The thought alleviates our pain:
Perhaps her savings in the end
Gave her more joy than we who spend.

15, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers © Adrienne Rich’s

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

16, Message From My Aunt On Her Son’s Death Anniversary © Louder than Hearts

My aunt, the one who has lost a son
to a shooting on the street, the one slowly losing
her sight, sends me voice messages and emoticons,
prayers like A fortress, my love,
protect you from harm in all directions-
above and below you, behind and before you.

Today, the emoticon is an orange.
Perhaps it’s a mistake. Perhaps she means
a kiss, or a heart, or a flower,
her eyes and aging fingers failing her.

But perhaps she means the fruit, remembers
how she used to sing me that song
where I was the orange she wanted
to peel and eat and not share with anyone,

remembers how much I love sour winter oranges,
the way they are round and whole, yet break
into the many bright crescents hidden beneath their skin.

Perhaps she’s saying what she always says
when she opens her arms and walks toward me,
I was telling myself you must have arrived.
The whole town smells of oranges when you are here.

For my Marwan, Leina, & Aya
For my parents & my aunts
For Rana