Is it a matter of not qualify-
ing or simply being different
or the intuitive desire to
play the outsider? He’s not

sure, but whatever that is,
it has encircled him for most
of what he can remember. His
mother’s family was the norm

to which he felt abnormal,
with a bit of “black sheep”
smugness added. He never
saw himself as one of them —

odd one out, much like his
father, a renegade Swede in
Dutch-land. In public school,
he was the religious one, but

he wasn’t comfortable with the
brand available, the Christian
club — over-emotional, sopho-
moric, sweet Jesus and me.

College? Back in the thick of
the click, small, religious school,
where everyone seemingly knew
each other from years gone by

and he struggled for a place of
his own. Seminary, forty-years
plus of ordained ministry and
finally finding the denomination

in which he felt he could be a
part, as one person put it
“home” for him, but not. Now,
he sits observing and making

notes from a separate place of
peace. Finally, he’s home. Better
late than never, he thinks and
then he feels like putting that

in a poem and then he thinks,
no, that’s such a cliché, and
that, he thinks, has never
been — a part — of it.