The Glacier
Issue Three
Winter 2024

Interview

It was after midnight, in a campsite, & I was alone.
What does God, or Spirit require of you? I was

asked this by a person standing in the pine clearing.
He didn’t offer a name to me. The pot where I’d

cooked hot vegetables in, full now, with stars.
My tent, behind me. & I stood at the edge, looking 

at him. God – which is Spirit – requires offerings.
Like what? He asked. The ears, both of them, I 

replied. And is that all? He inquired. Small bird
calls up above us. Coyotes squealing far off, & the

hot hissing protest of truck tires on the highway.
Spirit requires a kind of devotion that tears one	

away from one type of life: a life of comfort, I 
said. & so one soon learns to undress alone, under

the moonlight. & to rise, solemn, with a good cup
of something hot in the morning &, even then,

Spirit requires a certain loneliness, a solitude – 
one that walks parallel with this life, I said. & he

asked: Is it Spirt or you that requires solitude?
Soft purring of something in the shaded wood,

louder bewailing higher up, like maybe an owl.
& I answered: it is a road uncommon, & one is

called to walk it, no matter the hour, & that is 
the contour of it & I can’t explain it further, but

Spirit is the confession waiting for me there. & it
isn’t hiding or dancing like a gypsy & it doesn’t

tell me what it is. & it is like a silent attendant, 
an accompaniment. And he asked me, how do you

know it is Spirit? Loud rustling in the leaves now,
the whole sky an interbella, a flotilla of stars. &
	
fires, far off, their smoke rising like dead, flat flowers – 
the whole world’s violence suddenly wrathful, so

traumatic, & the faces of the wounded, the alone,
cinematic, & seeming to undulate & fail in the pine trees

so that above him I could see the true & the untrue
oscillating there, like a distraught heat-lightening.

& then, over the tops of large rocks, every face I’d ever
loved & held close to me for comfort, for joy, for life.

&, over the woodland dingle, small triennial stars – 
hovering over wet shrubs, like crystalline phantoms.

Ghost like, mourning in their absence even, & wet.
Shining wet like shimmering faces across light. 

I know it is Spirit, I answered him, because it has
my face. & it is a flute call I must follow alone – 

until all this conception, all this daydreaming & this
instruction with my own light, my hunger, is done.

Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist from the Detroit area. He is a 2012 Kresge Arts Literary Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee, best of the net nominee, winner of the Liakoura Prize and the author of nine poetry collections. His new book, The Light Most Glad of All, was published in 2023 by Kelsay Press. It was reviewed by Tipton Poetry Journal and Trampoline Magazine. Other collections include: Studies Inside the Consent of a Distance (Kelsay Books: 2022) and Our Common Souls: New & Selected Poems of Detroit (Blue Horse Press: 2020). He has work in Crab Creek Review, Concho River Review, San Pedro River Review, Panapoly, Sheila-Na-Gig and The MacGuffin.

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