I am poised between worlds
of multiple travels. Waiting
for another plane, I count a few choices:

to go with my cousin Gary
to Indianapolis, first time away
from home (and every night
I saw my folks saying goodbye);

the trip to Detroit to start college
seminary, hands in pockets,
ready for them to leave so the goodbye
could be over. Not homesick then
only a future with so much to learn
(and unseen the rumblings of anxious
fears waiting to creep up the wet brick
walls of the pile of medieval memory
when new laws, supposed sanctions
of the sanctuary took their shape);

fear and yes again to shape your life
with contours swelled from with-
in, with Him;
                        And on into days which
clatter in succession, revealing and
concealing their small surprises,
clefts in the cliff of vocation and answer—
like the day I put on Laurie Anderson
singing “Strange Angels”:
            Big changes are coming
            Here they come
            Here they come
and drove north to what I wanted
to be when I grew up–
freedom and flirting
and film and friends for life;
                                                    And now
I’m an old guy saying one more big change–
to live in the ancient cloister where
scholars sleep in three libraries and
root where my family sprung,
knowing I will strain daily
to sort the puzzle pieces of
language and life without
the picture on the lid
and pray an eternal
city will be kind.