A poem about mourning

FOR ROCHITA

How to we comfort friends far off who mourn?
We did not know their dead and never will
except as names. And yet those dead names still
beat in their grieving hearts. Words are outworn,

the ones so often used to soothe console
but all we have. I'm sorry for your loss
or for your trouble. Slowly grey-green moss
grows over names on headstones. There's a hole

there in your life unfilled and unassuaged
I cannot help with verse. But I will try.
From my own griefs along with you I'll cry
For my own deaths I've wept. At fate I've raged.

In sympathy, these feelings that we share
for those who were, but are no longer there.