The Text of Consolation

Actually, there was a stack of them
Picked and arranged by an editor,
And through each one you could imagine

Some person half talking to themselves,
Half to no one in particular,
In more or less strictly patterned lines

Making more or less articulate,
More or less explicit, arguments
For how to bear some dreadful event

And how to bear up against knowing
The world’s full up of dreadful events.
Some advised, chided. Some simply grieved.

Feeling them move around in your head,
You noticed there were no people there,
Only words, the voices of the dead.