The smallest things are where the menace lies: A clock's remorseless ticking, capsule measured, stark, Its second hand, scorning to compromise, Moving by millimeters toward the dark;

The devastation mirrors calmly show; The idle hours combing a lonely shore For memory's flotsam, wrack of long ago; The slow decay we struggle to ignore.

Such are the givens of our failing years. We can endure them since, in fact, we must. Our one true pain? Those who would share our tears Have one by one gone down to muffling dust.

Our solace? That the darkness which we dread Shall seem like light: it holds our sacred dead.