The service, slow because the café's closed,
detracts but little from the Padre's calm.
He takes the sun the way he has supposed
God means him to: a sweet midwinter balm
against souls' ice; a satisfying Psalm.
This terrace chair, that hundred-year-old boat,
and more, of both, from memory, moor and float
the Padre to this moment and the past.
Warmed by the sun, lunch wine, a borrowed coat,
he's sanguine that this spring won't be his last.