Vince Dwyer’s Cigar Poem by Bill Grace

Standing on a slight rise
Over the acres of parking lot
Pondering the enigma of auditioning a smart phone
Observing the automobile colors, shapes, owners
Taking in the distant bright sunlit buildings
I realized for a life time first
I was nothing more than a fish
Swimming in the material
Even an oxygen ocean
For sixty five years
Who until this very moment of declaration
Never had a clue.

Twenty nine years before
Vince Dwyer was enough of an authority
The Air Force chaplaincy paid me
To be his student,
He offered to meet with us individually
I was careful to keep the appointment
With this star of the spiritual and ecclesiastical stage
Shared a strange event that had happened
When fatigued a little too long
Learned that despite my world view
At age thirty six I had had a mystical experience
Which in no way kept the venerable Dwyer from enjoying his cigar.