I’m reading two poems about death—one by Wallace Stevens and one by Jane Kenyon. It’s my first time reading Stevens, and wow, he’s spare. “The Death of a Soldier” is all clean lines and no fuss: life “contracts,” the soldier falls, no ceremonies, no big speech. The line that gets me is “the clouds go, nevertheless.” That “nevertheless” lands like a truth we don’t want but recognize—the world keeps moving.

Kenyon’s “The Blue Bowl” is the other angle: small, close-up, hands in the dirt. She and a companion bury their cat with his bowl, noticing the red fur, the “white feathers / between his toes,” even the long, funny nose. Then she says, “There are sorrows keener than these,” which somehow makes the grief feel honest, not small. They go on with the day—work, food, sleep. Overnight it storms; by morning a robin is burbling like that neighbor who means well and always gets it slightly wrong. Nature shows up again, but as everyday life, not grand drama.

So, Stevens doesn’t build a memorial; Kenyon quietly does. Both avoid the spotlight. Put together, they say something simple and useful: things end, the weather changes, the clouds keep going—and we find a way to keep going too.