Four Thrift Blocks

Yesterday was Plan Your Epitaph Day; which got me thinking about things people put on their headstones. Robert Frost’s stone bears the words: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” Beneath his wife’s name are the last words of this poem:

No speed of wind or water rushing by

But you have speed far greater. You can climb

Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,

And back through history up the stream of time.

And you were given this swiftness, not for haste

Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,

But in the rush of everything to waste,

That you may have the power of standing still-

Off any still or moving thing you say.

Two such as you with such a master speed

Cannot be parted nor be swept away

From one another once you are agreed

That life is only life forevermore

Together wing to wing and oar to oar. – Robert Frost