My mother pressed leaves in dictionaries, by chance,
between loss and lullaby, grief and dance.
I find them now where she left them to teach
A word of wistfulness I cannot reach.

We live, what, eighty years at most?
And spend half that becoming ghost.
I used to think the point was being brave.
Now I think it’s what your hands forgave.

Love knows the dark is coming soon.
It leaves the porch light on past June,
Past autumn, past the point of reason—
A small defiance in every season.

He never spoke about the war.
He never told us what he bore.
He kissed my mother every night.
That’s honor. That’s the only rite.

Now I press leaves in books of mine,
Between the words I can’t define.
The dark is coming. So I stay.
I leave the light on. You’ll find the way.

The clock will stop. The body stills.
And so night comes. But what love builds
Outlasts the night. The door. The light.
The ordinary endless rite.