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A Blizzard of Beard With a Hole In It

A blizzard of beard with a hole in it, that’s all I am.
Put in dull food and wine, dull words dribble back out.
Yogurt and dried fruit: something gooey, semi-sweet.
Puff pastry with chocolate mousse: stupid sweet sayings.
But fragrant loins oiled and peppered, or tuna swimming in sauce —
something deep leaps in a hungry rush toward the lure
of an old poet's deceptive line —craggy, sunburnt, with glacier hair.
Only when I fast for eternity will my belly rumbles quake your life!

An excerpt from the upcoming book Seeking the Cave: A Poet's Pilgrimage to Cold Mountain.

 

The Red Ant

A red ant forages the dashboard
seeking familiar scented trails,
unaware he’s uprooted
with the roadside bouquet.

We drive together eighty miles
to reservation woods
as thick with bears as people

To grieve an Indian friend’s mother
who lived long enough
to have four daughters forgive.

The red ant rides in my universe
as I in theirs, all in another we do not see,
but feel sometimes, faintly,

In a rhythm rumbling deep below,
or in airy whispers through the trees,
indicating, I believe,
the sea.

 

From Saying Grace (March River Editions, 2004), and reprinted with the author’s permission.

Please see Steve Burgdorf’s interview with Jim in this current edition of Sleet on our interview page, and also visit www.coyote poet.com

 

After a career in academia, advertising and journalism as an editorial writer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, James P. Lenfestey has published poetry, reviews and articles, plus a book of personal essays, The Urban Coyote: Howlings on Family, Community and the Search for Peace and Quiet. (Nodin Press, 2000). He has published four poetry collections, including A Cartload of Scrolls: 100 Poems in the Manner of T'ang Dynasty Poet Han-Shan (Holy Cow! Press, 2006) and Into the Goodhue Country Jail: Poems to Free Prisoners (Red Dragonfly Press, 2008).