Jim Profit, SJ

When it got in him, gentle Jim

would work a hurricane in the garden

would do more between two darknesses

than could less major storms in a season.

His back came from younger days digging graves

in the red sands of a mythic island.

To us in-landers such islands always seem far away,

but to those born of tides they’re close enough to die on.

Jim loved land and spade but never dug his own graves.

He put his back into other things, into others.

And when he straightened after his hurricanes

he was tall and strong and tired and fit for a beer

that would tuck him into sofa-sleep in view of the 10pm news

with blisters and benedictions at the roots of his fingers.

Jim had two eyes: one saw grace; one saw harm.

Three years dying made him focus to see

beautiful pollution and polluted beauty.

Cancer collects us and throws us out.

Makes us foreign and familiar,

Creates a world distinctly the same.

Good night, Jim, gentle hurricane.