‘9.9.11 (Forron)’ By Dr. Rex Lagerstrom ’77 The fragile steel petal- has fallen from our sight- slipped Mertonesque into a deeper light than we can ever see-wry storyteller bone shard poet in the corners of forgotten rooms-laughing at open windows and humorless men in adamantine towers-we (the) pallbearers of your memories are left to carry scraps of paper scribbled with unfinished songs-we singers of songs meant for no one in centuries-old manuscripts and cutting-edge journals during 40 but unfolding for hours in the Bodleian Library, one of Oxford’s 39 libraries. everyone-we remember I also had dinner twice with Dr. Bee Wee, the president of the doors you kept open the United Kingdom Palliative Care Association, and her husband, behind your back and out Richard Hilier, who worked with Dame Cecily Saunders, the of sight from the ushers founder of the modern hospice movement. Because of this rela- so we could slip tionship, I was able to spend an afternoon in Sobell House, the unnoticed into the palliative care center for research and professional competencies directed by Dr. Wee. It doesn’t get much better than that. censored movies-free to Our Harris-Manchester digs were across the street from a sing our own songs-Io house where C.S. Lewis had lived; around the block from J.R.R. ricordare (I remember), I Tolkein’s home; just east of the Eagle and Child Pub, where will always remember- Lewis, Tolkein and the other Inklings met weekly to write; sev- You. eral blocks from the site where Alice in Wonderland was composed; and right in the midst of the streets where the PBS television shows Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis are set. I had dinner was inspired by the life of his friend Ron Seitz, who died in June 2011. Mr.Dr. Rex Lagerstrom ’77 is a physician and artist in Louisville. This poem with a Harris-Manchester Fellow who knows Colin Dexter (cre- Seitz, a poet and a friend of Thomas Merton, was a professor at Bellarmine ator of the Inspector Morse show); she took me to his home to from 1962-1989. He wrote numerous volumes of poetry, including The Gethsemani Poems (1985), Death Eat (1987) and Monks Pond, Old sneak a peek. Hermit Hai: A Haiku Homage to Thomas Merton (1988), as well as The Joseph and Maureen McGowan prize provided a magical Song for Nobody: A Memory Vision of Thomas Merton (1993), a mystery week, one that was generative and transformational. For memoir of his friendship with the Trappist monk. this I am deeply grateful. winter 2013 21
WINTER2013_BELLARMINE MAG
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