Abbas Kiarostami

«Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.

Let it be spoken without an effort,
without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident ?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight ?

I am but waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.»

Henry Scott-Holland (1847-1918)