Nor Washed Away by the Flood
Ejected, exiled, homeless, Eden banned,
no fires called Adam home at end of day
but Eve’s; and there alone where Sarah lay
held nomad Abram any share of land.
Beside the garden locked seemed naught but sand
to Solomon his court in royal array;
and home enough was Egypt’s farthest quay
to Joseph, if but Mary held his hand.
No, on this earth man has no fixed abode,
but seldom reaping what few fields he sows.
Yet to this rootless, shipwrecked traveller’s life
comes oft a woman’s heart to share the load,
be tent and hearth, and go where’er he goes:
God pities him and fashions him a wife.
--Anders O.F. Hendrickson
Anders O.F. Hendrickson earned his PhD in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. He is assistant professor of mathematics at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, and has a particular fondness for the poetry of Cardinal Newman.
