I first read Dylan Thomas when I was 17. Fifty-eight years later I still read his poems, most recently, “And Death Shall have No Dominion.”  Its theme: after a human life ends, we somehow, mysteriously remain part of the universe and each other. Despite my agnosticism, this poem speaks to me. It always has.

On June 6, my wife Dale and I attended a memorial service for Paki Wieland at Northampton’s First Churches. I met Paki decades ago through her colleague and mentor, the iconic Frances Crowe. Paki probably wasn’t arrested for civil disobedience quite as often as Frances, but it was close.

Paki demonstrated with Code Pink in Washington numerous times and sailed on a flotilla attempting to deliver medical supplies to Gaza. This past December in Northampton District Court she and her fellow protesters at defense contractor L3Harris utilized the necessity defense to defeat the charges against them. It warmed my heart that she wanted to come on my radio show to share that victory with the community. Paki knew then that she had terminal cancer. She fought for justice till the end. She inspired me always.

After the gathering that celebrated Paki, we walked to the memorial service for Tracy Kidder at Smith College’s Helen Hills Hills Chapel. I first met Tracy in 1983 when he was writing “House” — the story about my late law partner Jonathan Souweine, his wife Judith, Jim Locke and his cadre of carpenters building the Souweines’ home in Amherst. This would be Tracy’s second big book after his Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Soul of a New Machine.”

The literary world will long remember Tracy for his stories about extraordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things that alleviate suffering and make the world better, including “Mountains Beyond Mountains, Strength in What Remains,” and “Rough Sleepers.” His books were inspiring, reading them a joy, and speaking with him, for me, enriching, rewarding and good fun.

A bit later in June when I was out-of-state, I read in the Gazette that Jane Yolen had passed. Jane was a massively talented, extraordinarily prolific, award- winning author of novels, children’s books, poetry, non-fiction and graphic novels. I wrote to her daughter Heidi Stemple, herself a fine author, “Your mom brought love and light and understanding and creativity and laughter into the lives of everyone who knew (and read) her. Her passing saddens me beyond measure. I hold you and her memory in my heart.” I still do. (And I’ll miss the cookies Jane and Heidi would bring to my radio show.)

The following Saturday we attended a service at Bombyx for Dan Burke. Our family has been decades-long friends with the Burkes. In May 1999, Dan and Penny’s daughter Siobhan and our daughter Leah shared their bat mitzvah together, which my Daily Hampshire Gazette column that month kvelled about.

At Dan’s memorial I reflected on his sense of humor, sharing a story about us driving on a road in the Yucatan (apparently used by drug traffickers) when maybe a dozen men in army fatigues and brandishing machine guns rushed out of the jungle and surrounded our little rental car.

Dan spoke Spanish, which he’d learned in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua in 1968 -1970, a skill he utilized in numerous endeavors over many years to assist immigrants in western Massachusetts, including the ACLUM’s Immigrant Protection Project, which operated from my law office. I looked at him for translation: they told us to get out, that they’re going to search the car. Fine, I said, as I reached for the handle to exit, to which Dan responded, Hey, you’re the ACLU guy, don’t you want to tell them about the Fourth Amendment?

The day after Dan’s service we attended another celebration of life — for John Reinstein, the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts (ACLUM) for four decades.  As the western Mass. ACLUM attorney, I worked with him for 25 years.

John was a hero. He won victories for the dispossessed and disenfranchised, for women, students, and farmworkers, for persons accused of crimes and those serving time. John, with Nancy Gertner, established the right to abortion under the Massachusetts Constitution so when the Supreme Court reversed Roe, the right was still secure in the commonwealth.

John  was a brilliant, creative and zealous advocate for justice, a good friend, a mentor, a mensch. I was lucky to have him in my life and honored to speak at his gathering.

More sadness. The next week our friend Bob Winston passed after a short illness. Bob founded programs for court-involved youth, taught in prisons, served as dean at two community colleges, and famously saved the spotted salamanders in Amherst. His and his wife Jan’s annual left-wing BBQ and fundraiser for progressive causes is the stuff of legend. For over 20 years, he and I served together on the board (he was chair) of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which supports children of targeted activists.

As we age, we lose family and friends. We can expect to. But for me there’s been far too much death in far too short a time — too many passings of good people who lived good lives,  made contributions to their communities and shared bountiful friendship and love with their family and friends.

I feel the presence of their absence. And I also feel their spirit, their presence, somehow both ethereal and palpable. That feeling has brought me back to Dylan Thomas’ poem. On an LP 33 1/3 rpm record, I listen to his passionate almost hypnotic, enveloping words, “Though lovers be lost love shall not / And death shall have no dominion.”

Bill Newman, who co-hosts Talk the Talk,  a daily show on WHMP radio, and has a law practice law in Northampton, writes a monthly column.