Many would say that

he was unusual, or even
unsettling
in some ways.
He often gave subtle
(and sometimes blatant)
signs that he was being churned
and roiled by demons of
an indeterminate nature,
and it seemed as if he was always
involved in an argument
somewhere in the recesses
of that eccentrically organized
brain.
Maybe he was crazy, after all.
He embraced no gods,
but was often moved to prayer,
if only to plead for the safety
of those who were irreplaceable,
even though he wasn't sure
just who (if anyone) he was talking to.
He had the opportunity now
to rest on his past life,
but he still felt
an amorphous challenge,
emanating from a half-remembered dream,
to complete some final task,
which he was approaching
in a haphazard,
halting way.
He knew a great deal and still felt like
it was the first day of kindergarten.
The Finish Line was now visible
and yet he was just getting started.
He understood less than he did
when he burned with that
diamond-like fire
all those brief decades ago.
Words were his life, and yet they were
now increasingly hidden, as if they resided
on a murky, darkened hill.
He sighed for the lost, torrid vigor
of a young man in stud,
but he saw the newly minted adults
going through
the anguish of being the New Players
in the Oldest Game, and he wouldn't
trade his comfortable Peace Settlement
for their romantic trench warfare
for all the pages in The Joy of Sex.
And he had been wrestling, like Jacob,
with a stranger, not just all night
but since he could remember,
and he was beginning to suspect
that his opponent
bore a striking resemblance
to a face he had seen many times
before, and
would not be someone
who would bestow a new name
upon him.