Three-candle reading in daylilght
filtered through maples and oaks,
visited by ghosts and deer,
undisturbed among the dead whose minds
while they lived flowed through their pens,
and now through their pages bound and acid-free,
a consolation in our self-regard,
teaching us we are not so different,
be it thousands of years between footfalls,
obsessed with love and with death,
awed by the beauty of the planet,
the best of us wedded to hope
and to praise, praise for the going.
