ON THE DEATH OF MY GRANDFATHER
by Michael Langston

The setting sun tomorrow rises;
  The summer’s green each year renews.
While some things change to different guises,
  Nothing in nature we chance to lose:

The moon each month in thirty days
  Returns to its each separate phase;
Water lost falls back as rain,
  And grass if cut grows high again.

Such things as these did nowhere meet
  An end for us to see;
The stars, the same, alike repeat:
  What is…can’t cease to be.

And if some things appear to die,
  Their different guise escapes the eye;
Each thing thought gone, not noticed, stays
  As does the moon…in darkest phase.