These few lines from Seamus Heaney, the great poet whose death was just announced, deserve their own posting:

• The way we are living,

• timorous or bold,

• will have been our life.

If you aren't a regular reader of poetry, but wonder if there is something in poetry for you, I recommend some of the text plus audio pages where you can hear the gravity and thunder of the words in his voice as you read along. "Clearances 3" is a favorite of mine because it attends so carefully to ordinary family memories, seeing closeness and coolness and longing interwoven in just a few lines of vivid storytelling.