Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee is a lyrical poem lodged deeply in the folds of my brain—but, naively, unconsciously, I figured my brother was the only other living soul who could say the same. The poem seemed like something that belonged wholly to my late father, who would recite it to us often, with an overly enunciated and vaguely British brogue, as if doing Macbeth in the West End. He had a copy of the poem hanging on a laminated plaque by his desk in his damp basement office in our first childhood home. I have a memory of him picking me up from half-day kindergarten, likely buzzed, trying to teach it to me.Article continues after advertisement
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee
