Elegy for Explorers
For Some Hospice Patients
Like Columba or Brendan
launched on the infinite sea searching
for their own spare, special place of Holy Ground
These holy ones cut themselves loose,
drift off when the TV is on, find the deep swell
the partner asleep on the couch.
Sweat on the forehead and wrist
arrives like spume off the bow as they journey
towards that ultimate harbor.
O Lord, O Eternal!
Listen as these holy ones praise You.
We lift them up, their spirits rising like incense.
Brian E. Backstrand is an Episcopal priest with pastoral experience in hospice, hospital and rural congregational settings. His work has appeared in South Dakota Review, The Long Story, Anglican Theological Review, and other literary journals. A collection of fiction came out in 2005: Little Bluestem: Stories from Rural America. He and his wife live on a farm in the Driftless region of Southern Wisconsin.
