I don’t write poetry, but I do often write pieces, (or children’s books) with a prescribed word count. I know that each word matters. In leafing through the winter 2014-2015 Columbia University magazine that arrived a few days ago, I found an excerpt from Mark Strand’s essay “A Poet’s Alphabet”:

“E is for endings, endings to poems, last words designed to release us back into our world with the momentary illusion that no harm has been done. They are various, and inscribe themselves in the ghostly aftermath of any work of art. Much of what we love about poems, regardless of their subject, is that they leave us with a sense of renewal, of more life. Life, on the other hand, prepares us for nothing, and leaves us nowhere to go. It stops.”

Mark Strand was a children’s book author and a Columbia professor. When he became our poet laureate in 1990, he and his family moved to Washington and his son attended the same school as our daughter—Mrs. DeLorme was their first grade teacher.

Mark Strand died on November 29, 2014. He leaves us with a “ghostly aftermath.” An illusion perhaps, but far from momentary. And one of many.