Peter Horry,
b. 1666 in Cher, France

by A. Jonathan Vance

There is no temple in France.

This comes to me as I

Read the name on the card.

So I have brought him here,

Across the ocean and 300 years.

There is a brother behind the name,

but this stranger eludes me for now.

His name is foreign—

It stumbles off my tongue—

And I couldn’t tell his face

From another.

For me his dreams and joys and tears

Are three lines of black and white and ink:

Birth, marriage, death.

Still my heart is turned to him,

Who knew much less of me,

But sacrificed for tomorrow’s seed,

Fruits of a heart turned to children.

No, there is no temple in France.

But years and oceans only come so wide,

And here we close the circle,

And a circle goes on forever.