Tom schmidt

Tom Schmidt has published two poetry chapbooks, Enough to Drink or Drown (Kelsay Books, 2020) and Like, A Metaphor (Encircle Publications, 2021). More than fifty of his poems have appeared in journals since he began submitting in 2018 following an academic career in theology and literature. Rowing with Either Oar is his first full-length book of poetry. His second book, Stranger in Parodies, is a collection of light verse (forthcoming, Kelsay Books, 2025). Tom lives in rural Vermont with his wife, Merry.

Disciple

Foxes have holes, and birds have nests,

But the Son of Man has no place

To lay his head.                                 Matthew 8:20

Scholars reckon this a floating or orphan saying:

Remembered, but not in a particular context,

It appears in different places in two Gospels,

Homeless.

A fox lives on my land.

One night he posed for me,

Regal, atop a stump,

Before slinking to his hole.

Many birds live here as well.

Swift, nuthatch, goldfinch, towhee:

They sing full the morning,

Nest safe in leafy branches.

To live in such a place,

Even to visit, even to think on it,

Is not, has not been, the lot of

Many who have ever lived:

The lucky, perhaps the wrong man,

Certainly not the Son of Man.

So I pose, slink, sing, and nest

For those others, for him.

Read more of Tom’s work in Solum Journal Volume V: Legacy.