An invitation

If you come for my funeral,
remember this poem with you.

You'll gather with others,
by the river, in the forest,
where I once was
and where you will let go of me,
like ashen emotions in the downwind.

You'll have known only parts of me,
like others gathered,
although your effort was to know me;
because that's all I've known of myself.

You'll have loved me for the friend I was
and you'll meet ones whose enemy I would've been;
and all gathered may agree that
I might've been a worthy enemy
as much as a worthless friend.

You'll come with a bouquet of memories.
And may yet, in my living days left,
I give you something that you'll cherish then.
But knowing the barren field I'm now,
I foresee that
your bouquet will be of
dark dead roses.

That will be, though, something;
for "many a man has been given less."
When you come to mark my passing,
please know that regardless of what
you'll have left of me,
I've tried to give the most I could.
A poor man, I was given little to give away.
And so, when you come to give me away,
I wish for it to be
only
a soft spoken farewell,
a quiet smile.