10 Tir 1405
Quatrain 21 of 75
“Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.”
Reflection · Summer 1405
In summer the loveliest and the best are remembered differently — in summer's abundance there is room to think of them without the urgency that winter and grief impose. They went, and the summer continued, and here it is again, as abundant as it was when they were in it. Their vintage was pressed by Time and Fate — not wasted, not poured away. Pressed. Turned into something that is still in the world in the form of what they left, what they made, what they passed to the people who are now in their own rounds.
One by one crept silently to rest, and the summer dresses in new bloom. Both things. Both equally true. The summer bloom is not a betrayal of those who rested; it is the continuation of the vine that they too were part of.