“November 26, 1963” by Wendell Berry

We know the winter earth upon the body of the young
President, and the early dark falling:

we know the veins grown quiet in his temples and
wrists, and his hands and eyes grown quiet;

we know his name written in the black capitals
of his death, and the mourners standing in the
rain, and the leaves falling;

we know his death’s horses and drums; the roses, bells,
candles, crosses; the faces hidden in veils;

we know the children who begin the youth of loss
greater than they can dream now;

we know the night long coming of faces into the candle-
light before his coffin, and their passing;

we know the mouth of the grave waiting, the bugle and
rifles, the mourners turning away;

we know the young dead body carried in the earth into
the first deep night of its absence;

we know our streets and days slowly opening into the
time he is not alive, filling with our footsteps and
voices;

we know ourselves, the bearers of the light of the earth
he is given to, and the light of all his lost
days;

we know the long approach of summers towards the
healed ground where he will be waiting, no longer the
keeper of what he was.

Wendell Berry, 1934-

On his 3rd birthday (November 25th, 1963), John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes the casket of his late father | Photo by Dan Farrell