Many with whom I mourned the dead
Are dead, and mourn no more. Blesséd
Are they that mourn, for thus they have
The fullest magnitude of love
And learn of it, whereby the dead
Outlive their lives, and live instead
Eternally in present grace
Where death, ashamed, can find no place,
For love goes with them, out of time
Passing, and mercy welcomes them.
Lest in our grief we lose our way,
The dead lead back to light of day.
Not their absence from us we mourn,
But ours from them, and this we learn.
From Wendell Berry, This day: Sabbath poems collected and new, 1979-2013, (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Berkeley, CA, 2013), p. 345
