A soul - rough and reviled as Easter Island.
Quest complete, gray sprinkled in your hair and beard.
You, heavier and drunk, considered brilliant, content.

How interesting, what a story!
From a country Gay kid to the halls of academia...
Even America does not have many stories like that.

How far, not dragging to make ends meet.
Comfortable in a little white house in a southern college town.
Wrinkles, weathered skin reveals a man who knew worse days.

You, a treasure to me, do not deserve to know you.
If I was persistent, more patient, worked the same route -
Instead, I am here celebrating you...

Teaching classes, we once dreaded taking -
Imparting enthusiasm to the 'great unwashed' -
Nonchalant about what it took to change sides of a lectern.

Never think past a couple months - your new life.
Cigars, Yankee accents, catalog button downs, kakis with dirty bucks -
Liberal arts professors - drinking Gin with different peers.

Hope to see you soon - the grave your family picked.
Late evening - wet streets, faculty meeting, local watering hole -
Shocked at the papers - ravine where your car lodged.

Broken neck, bruises and cuts forcing teeth id -
Lying, waiting, and carrying on with it -
The bells ring for us all - lucky ones die on top with speed.



Written by
Stephen Lindsay Satterfield
July 2002.