We’re pleased to present a fine poem by another expatriate poet who washed up on the shores of Meikai University after gaining a degree from Warren Wilson College (where he studied with Heather McHugh). Adam Halbur hails from La Crosse, Wisconsin and is tasked with taming our fiercest listening students. Though he’s a married man with a child and a resident of Japan for more than a few years, it’s obvious to your humble correspondent that he’s still haunted by the prairies of the American midwest.

Groundhog,

bridegroom of Earth, priest of

the prairie parish, paunchy

monk cloistered in dirt-

packed den, traveling

minister to the ditches

of daisies and black-eyed

Susans, saint of the interstate

sunned in all God’s glory,

martyr of the tractor trailer,

woodchuck and whistlepig,

humor us in this hour of need.

Adam Halbur tells us that he’s working on his first book. We’d love to see it when it’s finished.