Fourteen Years Ago

Written August 13, 1985

Sam Jimmy.

The icy waters
Stole you from your new found home,
They sent you back
To rest, in early spring
Still frozen ground
Yielding to
Mud.

You left a little book
Scribbled thoughts,
A long way from home
Too old for eighteen
But then,
I didn't know you
Or why
Death served its notice.

I was only a face in the corridor
Just another white kid.

An invitation
To make the journey
Distant miles
We, your peers
Stepping into the unknown.

The reserve.
Culture shock.

We are late.
Inside the community hall
Lined with benches
Of silent people,
Their eulogy completed
I find a corner
To hide in.
Your coffin is carefully
Placed in the back of a
Datsun pick-up
That moves slowly, mud swishing
To the tiny church
Unlocked for the occasion.

Inside
The ill-at-ease
The prayers in response
Are barely audible
My voice seems
Too loud
I panic at
Communion for no-one
Moves
And it is I who step
Forward
But only a few
Follow.

Round behind the abandoned
Structure, the school empty
But looming
Its windows no longer beckoning
Or peered through
The snow still lay near the trees
Dried grasses trapped and
The graveyard
Frozen.

Your friends have gathered.

On the outskirts
I stand beside the horses' pasture
The barbed wire
The empty bottles
Lying as they have fallen
As if in homage, at the feet
Of the fence posts.
And the images, like snapshots
Imprinted on my mind
The shutter clinking
Again,
And again.

Back at the church, footsteps
No longer echoing
We clean
To lock it up
It gathers dust and is
A remnant of happier days.

On the back porch
I am startled by
A large statue,
St. Joseph
Old and weathered
Standing alone
On the wooden stair
Watching.
I turn to follow his gaze
Past the trees
Clustered near the church
I can see
Over the meadows
With fences running toward
A tall towering mountain range
Its peaks obscured
By the shroud
Of the day's gray clouds.

In the silence
The rain begins to gently fall
I look at him.
He has been here
On this porch
Waiting
For a long, long time
Sam Jimmy.