Hired for the dirty job of cleaning the dirty life
Out of the corners of a house long lived in
By a man recently dead.

An eccentric intellectual hippie of a fellow
Whom I had never met before he died
But knew with an intimacy many missed

Boxes of papers stood in the corner
I pulled a random parchment from one
His PhD from UCLA, signed by Governor Reagan.

What is a doctorate without a man?
All the work that went into this paper
That will end up in the burn pile

After the sparks flew into the night
After the ashes of his life went cold
I forgot about him until this morning

I was driving to work and saw a sign
Sauvie Island Wildlife Sanctuary
The old bachelor worked to make a wild place

His legacy went to birds and fish
Maybe his work and education wasn’t a waste
Because he made the world a better place.