The priest, teacher, scholar wrote of
signposts on the way to God.
The reader thought about
such signposts —

a father whom the reader as a boy
had worshiped without knowing it
until, ironically, the day the father
walked out the door and stepped
in front of a train leaving the boy
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

a mother who did all the right things
when the boy was little but who began
to show a profound jealousy, a
covetousness even, of, of all things,
that very boy and his sister,
leaving the boy
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

a teacher, a mentor, a father figure
a lovable, Falstaffian professor of
Shakespeare who didn’t believe in
God at all leaving the man/child
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

his wife, his love, who died at forty-
nine of a cerebral hemorrhage, down in
a day while they were away leaving
the broken-hearted husband
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

on the journey to or from God with
broken sign posts along the path.
And in the shock, sadness, tragedy
and mystery of it all,

was Grace, behind, surrounding and
ahead, just around the corner
beckoning, always beckoning
as the man, now gray, continued
to wonder, wonder, wonder.