Iraq War Grief Daily Witness - Day 69

The mother of 20-year-old Mohammed Hasson cries over his body in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, July 4, 2007. Mohammed was killed in a car bomb blast in the Baghdad's Shaab district Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

from A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?