Speaking into silent nights,
I step into someone else's shoes -
Walk the paths, late at night
Through cemeteries and past grand tombs.

They fit well, are deeply worn,
From all the readers who wore them before
And we pace, muttering,
Some fast and some slow
Lurking in the murky spaces the stanzas show.

The view is the same and the sun never rises
The eternal evening is peaceful in its quiet.
Ravens caw overhead, our mind's eye marked in lead
It sketches the pavement under our feet.

The path has been walked a thousand times,
More so, over this past hundred years
With good fortune, it will be walked again
By students of writers, and those readings through tears.
We walk in your shoes,
To see what you see
And together we share small moments to breathe.