My Patron Saint of Distance
for John Baglier (1978-1996)
Though I’m more than twice your age now,
you still seem like the older one
when I sense your shade keeping pace with me
on my morning run, just as you used to
when, like any good captain, you doubled back
to check on the freshman runners
as we half-tripped over rocks in the leaf litter
and endured the cross country trails’
quad-ripping grades. I know I’ll never know
what happened that night beyond the news report:
a broken man robbed and shot you,
then hid your body in a culvert no one looked into
for months, though we searched and searched
the landscape that in memory seems all dark wood
and gossamer frost. It was my first lesson
in how, yes, the ones who shouldn’t die
die, and that kindness—even yours—is no stay
against evil. I admit I’m still looking
for something more to your death than just death
and worry I flatter myself too much by believing
that the dead care about anything
enough to double back, but if it’s really you
and not my imagination, or even if it is,
stick by me a little longer, John.
Miles and years from Pennsylvania,
we’re at that moment past the top of the hill
where your legs lose the burden and your chest leads
the way a full sail pulls its ship, while recovery
and speed work together, the stretch in a course
where you told us to breathe because we can.
James Davis May is the author of two poetry collections, most recently Unusually Grand Ideas. Originally from Pittsburgh, he now lives in Macon, Georgia, where he directs the creative writing program at Mercer University.
Header photo by Joshua Woroniecki, courtesy Pixabay.
