Near The Orchard

We sat at the kitchen table
in his small house sited
next to the neighbor's orchard
(where we later picked apples--
it was a good-hearted neighbor)
when I asked him a simple
question:Do you pray?
Personal, you say...well,
fora friend and teacher?

Why that question, then,
in his kitchen? I surprised
myself in the asking; in
answering, he surprised me:
Why would I?

Some memories turn to stone,
never to dissolve in time's acid.
For me, it is that moment
as we sat at a simple table
in a simple house on a most
charming autumnal day,
as my beloved professor,
who had walked me from
Genesis to Revelation,
told me-- what?


(c. 2011)