We know the winter earth upon the body of the young
President, and the early dark falling:
we know the veins grown quiet in his temples and
wrists, and his hands and eyes grown quiet;
we know his name written in the black capitals
of his death, and the mourners standing in the
rain, and the leaves falling;
we know his death’s horses and drums; the roses, bells,
candles, crosses; the faces hidden in veils;
we know the children who begin the youth of loss
greater than they can dream now;
we know the night long coming of faces into the candle-
light before his coffin, and their passing;
we know the mouth of the grave waiting, the bugle and
rifles, the mourners turning away;
we know the young dead body carried in the earth into
the first deep night of its absence;
we know our streets and days slowly opening into the
time he is not alive, filling with our footsteps and
voices;
we know ourselves, the bearers of the light of the earth
he is given to, and the light of all his lost
days;
we know the long approach of summers towards the
healed ground where he will be waiting, no longer the
keeper of what he was.
—Wendell Berry
