Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light. For the past few months I’ve thought about little else, and I think about it gingerly: Dylan Thomas meant something more noble than this. * * * My eighty-three-year-old father is…

I. The Burial of the Dead Winter kept us warm, coveringEarth in forgetful snow, feedingA little life with dried tubers. When we pull up in front of my parents’ house I notice the trees first. The almond whose slender shimmering leaves splashed my bedroom walls with pale green light as I studied Eliot, then Heidegger,…