All Things
He died today. So you wept.
Regarded by some as "The Einstein of Religious Thought"
he was also but less important to the world a key influence
in your own thinking, the focus of your interest for years.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on The Unity of All Things
and lived as though his life were an incarnation of the principle.
He was a deep thinker in philosophy and religion but also in
psychology and ornithology, subjects not commonly linked.
You met him once, at a glance, and while no words were passed,
his smile drew you into a great sphere of influence with a sign of
felt-integrity. You wanted then to tell him of your ambition
to write of his thought, but that proved out of place, and yet . . .
He died today, not knowing that the tears you drop twenty years
from his gaze are for him and his genius but mostly for the difference
his work made on you. In time you did write him and he, you,
yet the heart knows nothing from letters, so you lament his passing.
She-Who-Loves-the-Poet stands now beside you. It suits the occasion.
http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hartshorne.html
