Calendars of old people are fraught
with meaning only deaths deliver,
As the dozen pockets of a year fill
with obituary notices and Mass cards –
Idiot twins of bad prose and worse verse,
that tell us who is dead, but not who traipsed
Along with us, through fair ways and foul lanes
that connect us, that tie life to life to life,
like bundles of seasoned sticks,
poised to float the River Styx.
Dave Read