It’s easy during this season of holidays to get so caught up in the preparations – the shopping, cooking, cleaning, errand-running and all the rest – to miss the actual event itself. But if we choose, we can find a moment or two where the we not only observe the holiday but allow it to draw us beyond the ordinary. Which is only appropriate, as the word holiday itself is a combination of words, “holy day,” a day set aside to contemplate and give thanks for the blessings of this life. What I like about W.S. Merwin’s poem “For the Anniversary of My Death” is that it offers us a snapshot or frozen moment of such introspection. It...