A Marriage Book: Poems - Softcover

Lenfestey, James P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157131492X ISBN 13: 9781571314925

Publisher: Milkweed Editions, 2017

Synopsis

From James P. Lenfestey, a collection of poems that lends delicacy and gentle humor to durable, long-lasting love.

Writing love poems fifty years into a marriage is no easy task: "If he exaggerates his love, she'll know . . . And if his desire for her is undiminished, / who would believe?" But in A Marriage Book, Lenfestey meets his own challenge with aplomb. These poems drop readers into the rich, textured world of one couple's enduring intimacy, from the warmth of a bedroom occupied by two to squabbles over miscommunications and crumbs in the kitchen.

As the marriage (and the Book) transition into parenthood, Lenfestey illuminates the equally stalwart wonder of observing one's children as they age and develop. Paternal love persists, and is even fed by, watching his children argue, suffer their own mistakes, and roar horrible breath at breakfast. So much poetry is about storms, / bruised fruit, locusts eating everything," he writes. "This poem is about a harvest that satisfies."

A Marriage Book is a collection that essences the magic from the household quotidian, creating a technicolor portrait of a vibrant and dynamic family.

About this title

About the Author

James P. Lenfestey is a former college English instructor, alternative school administrator, marketing communications consultant, and editorial writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he won several Page One awards for excellence. Since 2000, he has published a collection of essays, a poetry anthology, five collections of his own poems, several poetry chapbooks, and co-edited Robert Bly in This World. As a journalist he covers education, energy policy, and climate science. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife of forty-seven years. They have four children and seven grandchildren.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

For a Rescued Daughter, an Artist, Coming Up for Air through Water

Everyone knows where the waterline is.
Below feels like home,
but humans die there. Drowned,
it is called. And dead it is.
But soft, floating death, like living fish,
or flowing muslin folds, or sleep long longed-for.

Water mitigates gravity,
eliminates needs like bathrooms
And beds and cooking and cleaning
and loving and hating.

Above the waterline lies rough air--
one rasping breath after another, wind,
and steep hills, and thin, gasping mountains.

Yet you breathe on,
for your husband, sons, and
one taut canvas after another.

Like a phase change:
Watery blood and skin and hair
transmuted to watery blue-green paint,
watery paint becoming shadows
and the shadows of shadows.

Amid the daily clamor of puffing
swimmers and climbers,
a divine talent, ascending.

***

Once in the Sixties

When she walked toward me
radiant with pregnancy,
we laughed as if shaken
by some unseen wind
propelling our hand-painted van
those long camping miles.

Children grew like daffodils,
so obvious, green and yellow
and quick out of the ground,
soon blossoming all over.

Somehow we recognized their
faces, familiar in old photographs, felt
their unexpected humors congealing
in warmth around the campfire.

We barely had time to wonder at their beauty,
grades, spouses, children,
and we are camping again,
under dark pines, near lapping water.

Laughing as if nothing had happened,
no time passed.

***

And Still She Blooms

Rains flood the western mountains.
Lightning shatters eastern shores.
Ice cracks limbs, gophers siphon roots.
And still she blooms, waving
smartly over the tall grass.

Bumblebees freighted with pollen
buzz by again, again,
fixed by her calyx tilt,
tasting her multi-colored tongue.
They're drunk, forgetful,
as if no winter ever were.
As if soft swellings such as hers
will sway forever in whatever wind.

***

A Wedding Poem

Marriage is attached
to the center of earth.
Its weight is incalculable.

Before,
it swirls around you
like a gas,
like a collection of stuffed animals,
like a forest fire.

But after the ritual
under the arbor,
the sharing of tea,
the bored grin of the Justice,
the white train floating like a glacier
down the red aisle,
the looping of rings,
the moon dance . . .

it attaches to the feet.
It weighs them down
and supports them
at once.

It is gravity,
which limits us totally,
which makes life possible.

Edition details

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 157131492X
• ISBN 13: 9781571314925
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104