I don’t have any appropriate prayers. Perhaps the El Malei Rachamim if I knew Hebrew — .
But Emily Dickinson… her poems can be my prayers. I think, maybe, they always have been.
Death sets a thing significantThe eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderlyTo ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With “This was last her fingers did,”
Industrious untilThe thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then ‘t was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,–
At rest his fingers are.Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.– Emily Dickinson