Distant Regard: A Selection from Tony Hoagland’s Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (2018)

If I knew I would be dead by this time
next year
I believe I would spend the months
from now till then
writing thank-you notes to strangers
and acquaintances,

telling them, “You really were a great
travel agent.”
Or “I never got the taste of your kisses
out of my mouth.”
Or “Watching you walk across the room
was part of my destination.”

It would be the equivalent, I think,
of leaving a chocolate wrapped in shiny
foil
on the pillow of a guest in a nice hotel—

“Hotel of earth, where we resided for
some years together,”
I start to say—before I realize it is a terrible
cliché, and stop,
and then go on, forgiving myself in a
mere split second

because now that I’m dying, I just go
forward like water, flowing around
obstacles
and second thoughts, not getting
snagged, just continuing

with my long list of thank-yous
which seems to naturally expand
to include sunlight and wind,

and the aspen trees which seethe and
shimmer in the yard
as if grateful for being soaked last night
by the beautiful irrigation system

invented by an individual
to whom I am quietly grateful.
Outside it is autumn, the philosophical
season,

when cold air sharpens the intellect;
the hills are red and copper in their
shaggy majesty.
The clouds blow overhead, like governments
and years.

It took me a long time to understand the
phrase “distant regard,”
but I am grateful for it now,
and I am grateful for my heart,

that turned out to be good, after all;
and grateful for my mind,
to which, in retrospect, I can see

I have never been sufficiently kind.

—Tony Hoagland, “Distant Regard,” Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (2018)