Counting Range

Read these beautiful lines in a poem in Jane Hirshfield's Ledger

As things grow rarer, they enter the ranges of counting.

Remain this many Siberian tigers,

that many African elephants. Three hundred red-legged egrets.

We scrape from the world its tilt and meander of wonder

as if eating the last burned onions and carrots from a cast-iron pan.

Closing eyes to taste better the char of ordinary sweetness.

The idea of entering the "ranges of counting" was something I turned around in my mind many times after I read this. The years left to live for one - for those who happen to know when the end will come. From there it becomes possible to count months and days. I often experience this when talking to the elderly in my life - how much do they think about what is left that is in the range of counting. What makes it worthwhile to count and what to count.