The school motto, in gothic letters,
On the altar, dark, angular,
The patina of old wood against exposed brick:
Boarding school boys sing a requiem
For a headmaster they had not known.
My father taught here then, years ago,
And I, maladapted son and student to them both,
Have come a long journey of memory and regret,
Representing one shade to another.
In the worn walnut pew
I hear the eulogists recall their mentor:
Does it matter that my remembrance is not the same?
The choir recesses against a January sky:
There I am, the sullen boy behind the crucifer.

Outside the oak-beamed dining hall
Odors and textures jump across time:
Cheese soufflé cooking on Saturday morning,
Wet wool drying in steam heat.
Over coffee I speak to classmates after forty years
But do not stay for lunch,
Pleasantries left like cream not stirred.
Sand and soot grate upon the ice beneath my shoes
Past mounds of graying snow
In the visitors’ parking lot.