charred fragments drift like ghosts across the surface of the little pond and the words ascend upward and out burning toward the horizon past the roof of the little stone house past the heavy limbs of the trees past the arch of the setting sun and before they have come to the final page night has fallen and fire burns in darkness the burning words are the only illumination and when they are gone there is only night and ash and all the stars are in the water and all the words have gone to heaven raised like a prayer to something ancient and sightless and beyond the corruption of thought or time .