the man in charge 
    doesn’t know 
how to forgive. 
    that’s one of the 
really big necessities -- 
    forgiving 
      and 
    accepting 
   forgiveness. 
                life 
can’t move on. 
   it’s stuck at the 
revenge place 
        and goes  
                   falsely 
by the name 

      “justice,” 

when it only leads 
to self-justifying,
              
    “sacred” violence 
which is 

profanity and retributive justice 
        but
not restorative justice.  

there is no justice;
there is just death 
in one form or another -- 
      
    and THIS is 

the man in charge.

He keeps telling himself, 
     “You can’t control your dreams,” 
which should lead to the 
      truism that he can’t control 
much of anything except, 
      perhaps, 
his response to his dreams. 
      And he did just that the other night. 
His dream took him back thirty-years 
      to his 
             “Before-Death-Intruded” life 
and in his semi-sleep, 
      he felt his stomach tighten 
              and tears well. 
      “Well,” 
and with that he reached 
      over and hooked a finger 
in his wife’s shorts, sighed 
      and fell into 
               a slumberous sleep.

He’s watching Charade (1963),
the scene where the orange
is passed chin to chin and he

remembers his first summer
assignment in Astoria, NY
as a student minister and

having a party with the black
kids in the church and the
white kids up from a South

Carolina Presbyterian con-
gregation on a mission
trip and having them pass

the orange under their chin —
black kid to white kid and
back. The black kids were

fine with it and the white
kids said they would do it
but never, ever tell anyone

back home. That was 1967.
He wonders if those white
kids ever told anyone at

home. And if that one
game in 1967 made any
difference at all.

They wanted to ski
cross-country this New Year’s day;
cold got in the way.

Their legs coming back
for the winter wonderland
waiting for that day.

Unfortunately,
snow shuv’ling gets in the way
of skiing away.

He looked out the sliding glass door,
beyond his yard to the natural depression
next to his backyard neighbors’ house
and saw what looked like sledding

marks. He wondered who could have
made the marks because there aren’t
any children living on that street.
Later, his wife looked out the door

and saw children sliding down the little
hill. She said they must be the grand-
children of the new neighbors. He
didn’t look out but, nevertheless,

he saw a steep toboggan slide through
his closed eyes. Then he saw his
three high school buddies — Russ,
Terry and Big Dennis. They pulled the

sleds back up the hill and Russ and
Terry got on one and he and Big Dennis
got on the other. They took off together
but because of Big Dennis’ three hundred

pounds, the two soon passed Russ and
Terry. He shouted to them, “See you
later, losers.” Then they went for pizza.
He opened his eyes and shook his head

as he thought about Big Dennis who
died of a heart attack ten years
ago thus missing the fiftieth class
reunion. Dennis didn’t miss much.