On a cold, snowy road after darkness
Come headlights that draw the eyes
Like a puppeteer’s wires. Then comes the car,
Easing over pot holes and slick places.
One cannot see within it—if its driver is young,
Old, middle-aged, man, or woman.
Perhaps it does not matter. The car is funereal,
Though not a hearse, and not black.
A house curtain is drawn taut then released.
Footsteps sound through the brightly lit home.
They stop by the door, to greet the driver, the bearer.
Nothing ever stays the same. People come and go.
Folk pass through this world
Like a stream’s water coursing over a stone.
Love is found, nourished, and grows.
But justice is blind, fate is deaf,
And we must go on living,
Long after the elegy’s last notes are played,
Even while the heart languishes in sorrow.
