"when someone dies"

When someone dies everything

else is left behind:

 

the mountains and the houses

in some distant county,

and that road that passes

on Sundays over the wooden bridge

before heading out of town.

 

And the spring sunshine

that in late afternoon

finally reaches the shelf of books

and magazines that must

also have once been new.

 

It's really not that strange.

 

But it still never ceases

to surprise me.

 

(Translated by Patrick Phillips)

Done