Cheerful Curmudgeon

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Ranier Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly

That is from one of my favorite books, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology by Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade.