If I ever reach the Pearly Gates and give an accounting of my life to St. Peter, there will be many things I will not recall. Much of it is too mundane, but I will be able to recall major events and personalities that have inspired me for one reason or another. I will recount here one of those events and the personality who gave shape to it. The person and I became acquainted a long time ago with him being a high school student and me being the high school principal. My tenure at that school lasted three years, after which I left for other places and things to do. Our paths did not cross again until a time two or three years ago.
Standing in my front yard in the dusky sunset of an early fall day a pickup stopped and a young man jumped out and strode towards me with his hand outstretched in greeting. I recognized him almost right away and called him by name.
We visited for a long while that evening and I was uplifted by his bright, positive attitude, yet saddened when he told of the tumor in his brain. He had apparently experienced quite a struggle with his affliction, and I thought he spoke with a wisdom that was beyond his years. Some months later I got news that he had passed away, but he left me with the seeds of a poem that I am sure he never had time to write. I dedicate it to him.
Reid’s Poem
It’s funny the things that stick
with you: the bleat of a lamb
in a snowstorm, the whistling
of a blizzard in the eaves,
a meadowlark’s song in spring,
or spoken words that linger.
Reid, you stopped to talk and left
rich thoughts that beg to be etched
deeply into lines of verse.
You shared tales of the cancer
you carried inside your head,
plus proud news of family,
a business, and your horses —
draft horses you liked to hitch
and drive in the countryside.
There, I’m sure, you reflected
on your fate to form this line:
“I wonder what old men think
when they lean on a fencepost
and look out across the fields.”
Some months later, you succumbed,
but those wistful words still haunt
me. I’d said, “That’s poetry,
have you ever tried to write?”
“No, but I’ve thought about it.”
You knew there was little chance
to grow old or write poems,
but there, reins in hand, that scene
floated dreamlike through your thoughts:
you, leaning, looking, yearning.
