In Memoriam Lee Hoinacki

The worry would come

With an overnight snow

Continuing into morning

Coming down before dawn

To the ringing of phones

School today no school

At eighty already out with a shovel

Wide as his slender frame

Clearing a path to the rectory

At length lured inside

For coffee and the still warm bread

He had earlier baked

Then off upstairs to his room

His books as dense and heavy

As the snow in that shovel

His daily quota of Aquinas in Latin

Tolstoy Kolakowski Simone Weil

His own work and studies of Illich

News that weather prevents

Staff arrivals and he is back down to man

The phone War and Peace in hand

Ora et labora amor studiorum

The vintage of his monastic years

Prayer study manual work

Weather allowing or not

The afternoon will mean

A peace vigil downtown

Gathered with others

For the pre-dinner Mas

s His silence a contrast

To our many words

Unless some careless comment

Required his courteous intervention

His room as austere as that of a monk

Over the sink a hand washed tee shirt

In anticipation of tomorrow

John McNamee October 2014