they are quiet now, settling into
a new sphere of darkness,
one with the rectitude of an oak tree,
the other with his mirror and his illusion:
those two who passed through our lives
chiseling time, untangling, opening
furrows, trailing the just word,
the bread of the word every day.

(Even if they didn't have the time to grow tired,
now quiet and finally solemn,
they enter, pressed together, the vast silence
that will slowly grind down their frames.)

Tears were never invented
for those men.

And our words
sound as hollow as a new tomb
in which our footsteps sound out of key,
while they remain there alone,
naturally, as they existed.

-Pablo Neruda