Remembrance, celebration, service tie
together strands defining who I am,
times not of quick hello but sad goodbye,
days both of group and personal exam.

The happenings that punctuate our lives
involve sometimes just one, sometimes large groups,
unanswerable sadness oft arrives,
unseen exhilaration to us stoops.

But always days come after days recalled
with pain or happiness or often mixed,
not sure just what is still in play, what walled,
uncertain what ongoing, what transfixed.

Our arms around the things we think we love,
our minds acknowledge we know little of.

-- Robert Stone, 12 September 2010