My Noble, Occasional Beard

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Three days of growth,
all wooly and bemused,
gray/black hairs, flattened forest
of facial shrubs to touch, to rub,
to feel the prickliness
of man,
to allow the roughness of
untouched cheek and chin
to belie the soft senstivity
within.
Did Keats have wild hair
hanging from his visage?
Abrasive stems
jutting out into his life,
tranfixing his own meaning?
Not in the photos I've seen.
Soft Keats. Soft man. Soft me.
So grab no enemy razor,
whirring cutter of strand-life.
Leave it rough today,
belie that softness,
undermine the reasoning
behind being kempt.
In the mirror, at least, 
staring out, Keats influenced
but bearing no lingering resemblance,
is a glorious savage--and
with searing vision--
some Darwinian revenge;
God's not laughing.
He has his own noble beard,
longer than mine,
longer than the years
of several breathless worlds.


© Lamont Palmer

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