My poem “Wildfire” went live at Sheila-Na-Gig last week, a poem I wrote when I learned my uncle Osvaldo had been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer. A couple of months later – if that long – he was gone. It was the beginning of a rough year of losses in our family, which then turned into the pandemic, etc…it feels like we’ve been on this rollercoaster for quite a while now, and I just learned the Pope died this morning as well. I’m an atheist, and was always rather skeptical of Pope Francis – as I am of all popes, and the institution they head – but he was always a better man than his predecessor. I hope his successor is better still, but I’m not holding my breath.

In any case, my uncle was a good man of conflicted religious nature who came to philosophy late in his life. We had a great many conversations on our walks in the woods together, just the two of us, and that is how I will always remember him. The last time we saw him, in the hospital, he was all smiles. May his memory be a blessing.