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 Hirschfield, "The Dead Do Not Want Us Dead"