There was a Parish Newsletter,
3 sheets of paper, stapled in the middle,
Folded over, mailed quarterly,
Bulk rate non-profit stamps
Mostly columns from Church People;
√ Updates on the diaper ministry,
√ Names of all the blue hairs working the rummage sale,
(Which has also been discontinued)
And every quarter a page two opinion,
Often from our own small town lawyer, named Gene,
With a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Or some other prolix and sententious Saint
Extrapolating said quote into the need
For subsidized housing, health insurance,
Anchor babies scared their parents may be deported,
Then I was never THAT far left
And he lived near by, summer and winter,
In clear weather (if he wasn’t at court that day)
He’d commute on his bike from his office back home,
Passing by, I threw snowballs at him
I’d be out there, getting the mail, scraping driveway ice,
And up the long hill before our house comes pedaling Gene,
In low gear, cycling slow as you’d walk,
Who can balance at that speed?I didn’t try to hit him,
Ice in the face is no fair for a friend,
Just splosh twelve feet before, or ten behind,
Splosh, so he knew how we stood on the issue
I asked him once, during church coffee hour,
“Ever think of writing an opinion on punk kids
Who throw snowballs at old men on bikes?”
His comeback;
“That’s only you, punk kids today are
Too busy with their gadgets to read a piece of paper”
Then Gene caught the cancer,
Took meds that gave him an almond tan,
And when they stopped working he just gave up
And made his peace
There was talk of starting a newsletter online,
Wish I could write for that sometime
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