You were young when you
went to Africa. Imagine,
you in the bush! Mud huts
and witch doctors. Singing
hymns loud in the jungle --
Jerusalem, All Things
Bright and Beautiful.
Mosquito netting, Bible.
Your soft hands.
I knew you later,
in a black suit, that
tweed hat you loved,
or sitting in an overstuffed
gold chair in your study
reading Kierkegaard.
In the plan the hat would hang
on a hook -- the beak of a carved
wooden loon -- in the mudroom
of a square old house
in Minneapolis, where
you'd sit at the kitchen table
reading the Star Tribune,
buttering toast. Still homesick
for the East. A sermon to write
today. What psalm says
they go down to the sea in ships?
Instead, the tumor grew
in the zone of fear and mystery.
The hat covered the scar, the blisters
from the radiation. Boston's
best hospitals. Nevertheless.
And in your bed you'd
sometimes chant, pray
in Swahili.
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