Mayor of Brainerd

by flammeusgladius

The Mayor of Brainerd

 

 

(in memoriam James Wallin, d. 26 Sept. 2015)

 

 

I teased your decency when first we met.
Oh, well, that’s something that I often do.
Father of Serpents, how can I forget
to hiss hard at such righteous folk as you?
Your decency was pure and turned the cue
for irritation, with a smile, away.
And I in turn was stunned. I thought anew.
I learned esteem for Lutherans that day.
Friend, at this moment, who knows what to say?
I’ve lost my hiss. My silence is a well
of emptiness, a game I used to play.
I pray that I can fall the way you fell,
a world beyond the lion’s fierce pursuing,
the kind of man who did what needed doing.

 

 

–Tom Riley