ENDANGERED SPECIES

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

When emergency surgery revealed I had cancer, my first oncologist told me “a year or two.” I wrote the following poem, which won some contest prizes and was published in various places. That was 25 years ago. When a new transition comes up, like the one now, as we move from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, since the grandchildren are grown up now, to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married 56 years ago, I like to revisit this poem, to remind me that… well, you can read the poem and decide for yourself…

ENDANGERED SPECIES

At final dusk, the rhino came,

the last one, mateless,

thus by definition, last,

and last by nature’s way;

Sipped at the water in

the pool we share, and said:

“It must be me. I am

so ugly, short of sight,

so thick of brain and breath.

God might have let us live,

except for me.”

It bowed its head and turned

to go wherever last things go,

but I said, “Wait! Not so!”

Fierce whisper, “Look at me,

I’m beautiful, far-sighted, bright.

We stand at poles, apart,

In all but this:

We are both in danger’s way;

hunters’ shells and cancer cells.

That which holds us fast,

Yes, Death,

grips us tight in one

uniting fist.

So why then, if we’re so different, us?”

It smiled, as rhinos can, you know.

I grasped its ugly horn

and held on close.

Into the dark we charged.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I tweet as yooper1721.