From AlexanderMen
A Poem by Fr John McGuckin written in Moscow in November 2007
Softly,
as though stepping
through a mist of time
you sent me greetings,
Alexander Vladimirovitch,
long after your death
in this time.
They came by the winding
of long journeys
through many hands.
Three photographs were my inheritance
faded and cracked along the edges –
they had been handled so much.
They taught me
when your lips lay silent;
black and white
reflecting the times
slightly faded snaps
casually taken
but by those who loved you
which made the difference,
confecting them sacraments.
One showed you in priestly vestments
raising your hands like a prophet
reciting the Cheruvikon at the altar –
an open and zealous face;
a man among men,
a priest before his God.
The other: you standing in shirtsleeves
with family around you,
smiling out to history;
a beloved among his loved ones,
a father;
the playful irony in your smile
merely hinting at the depths
that shelved away steeply
as a shingled beach gives way underfoot
to fathoms unsuspected and unknown.
The third opened out the inside of your home:
plates of food, a guitar,
your books.
Once more you were setting a table
in the house of love.
These things you left for me as a trace.
Three, like those priestly greetings
in the old, the gracious style.
Three kisses among the Russians:
Hristos Posredi nas:
Christ is in our midst!
And so it was.
You were the medium then:
His smiling sacrament.
Peace upon you priest Alexander.
Peace upon your name.
Peace upon your house.
John A. McGuckin.