To long for what eternity fulfills
Is to forsake the light that one has, or wills
To have, and go into the dark, to wait
What light may come- no light perhaps, the dark
Insinuates.  And yet the dark conceals
All possibilities: thought, word and light,
Air, water, earth, motion and song, the arc
Of lives through light, eyesight, hope, rest and work-
And death, the narrow gate each one must pass

Alone, as some have gone past every guess
Into the woods by a path lost to all
Who look back, gone past light and sound of day
Into grief’s wordless catalog of loss.
As the known life is given up, birdcall
Becomes the only language of the way,
The leaves all shine with sudden light, and stay.