The English Department

In 1969, in the Fall semester,
darkly painted leaves, broken from their stems
by a season dying and grasping, danced
across winding university walkways.

The English department, factionalized,
was ripping itself apart from inside,

traditionalists, modernists, postmodernists, all
competing for their baffled president’s directions.

A long-standing member of the faculty and board,
Roger, sat long-faced that October afternoon,
slumped into his chair in an angry conference room
where minuscule men fired shots across the table
safely at each other with all the fervor of a blizzard,
while all Roger desired was a summer sun.

Roger was large, like a proper Baptist,
and his face was soft, in a naïve manner.
His students were fond of his disposition,
though few signed up for his literature classes;
even so, what can a confused administration do
with an old—and resolutely tenured—professor.
He was practically a staple of the school.

As a professor, Roger’s posture was stooped,
his suits oversized, his ties too long, his pants too tight.
He drove a Ford jalopy that sputtered like a smoker.
The career teacher looked back on his life as he sat,
and if he was, for once, honest with himself,
he understood he did not understand
what in God’s name had happened to his school.

Up Roger leapt from his narrow chair, raising his fists,
stretching his hands to beloved heavens.
“Er mwyn daioni!” he exclaimed in Welsh,
and as he glared around the conference table
at the others—Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Atheist—
the last thing he cried before he slunk out of the room
he pleaded, “Can’t we all just get along like good Christians?”

Roger retired out to his Ford and cried,
drove straight home, had a heart attack, and died.

The faculty gathered around the peaceful Roger
at his simple funeral and proclaimed, as one,
“He was nice. And sweet. Wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”
Yet no one seemed to weep except his wife.

I should know. Roger was my great-uncle,
yet I only remember him through this one odd story.

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