Lynch's wife, Mary, an artist, has a studio next to their house. She says dealing with death magnifies the value of life.

MARY LYNCH: When I think I am having a bad day all I have to do is look across the street and realize that somebody else has it worse.

MR. LYNCH: Well, I'm glad to be alive. You know every day you wake up is a bonus.

ABERNETHY: Lynch travels often -- here, to the College of Charleston, in South Carolina -- to do readings from his books. As usual, he received a glowing introduction.

MR. LYNCH: It's always nice to hear such kind things said about you in the present tense, and to be vertical when you hear them.

ABERNETHY: Lynch read a poem about a man facing up to the fact that someday he will die. The chances of dying, Lynch likes to say, hover around 100 percent.

MR. LYNCH (reading poetry to audience): "The future thus confined to its contingencies, the present moment opens like a gift. And what to make of this? At the end, the word that comes to him is 'Thanks. Thanks.'"

ABERNETHY: The titles of Lynch's books disclose how much his trade influences his writing: STILL LIFE IN MILFORD; THE UNDERTAKING, a National Book Award finalist; and his latest, BODIES IN MOTION AND AT REST.

As often as he can, Lynch visits Ireland, where one of his relatives left him a cottage. He says he loves the sounds of the language there, and those sounds influence his speech and his poetry. Often, he listens to Irish radio while he writes. Lynch is much admired in Milford. He is also becoming known nationally, not only for his writing but for his opinions.

ABERNETHY: Lynch lives in the same county as Doctor Jack Kevorkian, now in prison for assisting with suicides.

MR. LYNCH: To me, assisted suicide sounds oxymoronic, you know, like "holy war." If the only way to get rid of suffering is to get rid of the sufferer, then I say we have not looked at our other options. I see Jack Kevorkian as a serial killer.

ABERNETHY: Lynch thinks specific arrangements for funerals should be left up to the survivors. The dead, he likes to say, don't care. On the other hand, he has written about his own wishes. Naturally, it is a poem.

MR. LYNCH (reading poetry): "I want a mess made in the snow so that the earth looks wounded, forced open, an unwilling participant. Go to the hole in the ground. Stand over it. Look into it. Wonder and be cold. But stay until it's over, until it's done."

ABERNETHY: Over 30 years, Lynch has arranged perhaps 6000 funerals.

MR. LYNCH: When I see people at this most difficult time in their family history, I am also seeing what is best about our species, you know. The attachments and the affection and the faith.

ABERNETHY: Lynch was asked how he comforts the bereaved.

MR. LYNCH: What I tell people is to find ways that grief can be managed -- not gotten out of but gotten through. You tell them, I can't fix this, but I can be with you through this.

ABERNETHY: Ceremony, symbol, metaphor -- they are the essence of both of Lynch's callings: what he sometimes calls, with a smile, "the literary and mortuary arts."

SEVERSON: One bit of advice from Tom Lynch. He says he's learned not only that life can be short, but that if you're angry at someone and that person dies before you've made up, you can suffer a lot. Lynch told me, "I don't hold grudges very long."


Read Bob Abernethy's complete interview with Thomas Lynch.