What is the poet's mood in the collection, Delights and Shadows?

Mood is the primary emotion a poem evokes. The poems in Delights & Shadows vary in their mood from celebratory ("A Box of Pastels") to angry ("Old Cemetery") to morose ("Home Medical Dictionary"). In the poems in which Kooser writes about his deceased parents, the mood is by turns somber and sentimental, as in "Mother" and "Father." Sometimes the mood is surprising considering the poem's subject. For example, "At the Cancer Clinic" and "The Old People" are both uplifting, comforting poems about people nearing the ends of their lives.