The dead do not want us dead

The dead do not want us dead;

such petty errors are left for the living.

Nor do they want our mourning.

No gift to them - not rage, not weeping.

Return one of them, any one of them, to the earth,

and look: such foolish skipping,

such telling of bad jokes, such feasting!

Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed: feasting.

~  Jane Hirshfield