Chance Encounter

I met him in a high rise

One sunny afternoon

Young priest I was out visiting the folk

Same age we were mid twenties

He just passing through

Going home, home to Roanoke

 

I’d been cooped up in seminary

Six years imprisonment

Now let out to walk the roads of life

And he’d been somewhere else

I didn’t like to think

It wasn’t peaceful it was full of strife

 

We said hello and chatted

We never met again

But the look upon his face I still retain

While I’d been stuck in Shropshire

Staring out at fields

He’d been in a jungle

Vietnam

 

Brian Fahy

10 November 2021