Accepting Death
In the poem "Long Distance II", the speaker notes that his father grieves for his deceased mother by acting as if she were still there - he sets the table for her, keeps her belonging, and other uncustomary things. The author of the poem is trying to remark that one must accept that after death, there is no coming back, and that is simply the cycle of life. The hypocrisy of the poem takes action when, in the last stanza, the speaker (the son of the mother) acts in the same way towards people that have passed away, showing that this denial is a learned trait.
Expression
In the poem "Heredity", the speaker answers the question of how he became a poet in a mere four lines, saying that one of his uncles stammered, and the other was dumb. Taken at face value, this may not make much sense, but it shows that anyone can write words. What is done with words is what matters, but simply writing them doesn't allow you to express everything you are trying to convey.
Differences
In the poem "Book Ends", a pun in itself, the mother of one of two friends passes away, and their friendship almost gets lost as well. The two were drawn to be friends in the first place by their differences, but that does not mean they are completely different. One day, sitting together, the two remember how the mother used to compare both of them to bookends, and she was the bridge between the two. This comparison is used to ease their pain, but the author of the poem does not go on to describe if the two actually overcome their differences.
