The gates of life and death

[Lori]

Something from one of my favorite authors - Wendell Berry:

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The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world
We who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. but that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of the world!
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