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.