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89 f r o m t e n t m a k i n g l a r d g o u r d In the 19th century in Georgia there was a clever dog who found he could secretly dig his way under the foundations into the back of a meathouse. The meat was hung to smoke too high for his leap, but there were gourds loaded with lard nearer his level. The night he made his entry was early in the century. The new residents of the land were intruders themselves, scared and cruel, so when they heard the banging about, they did not investigate until morning. The dog had gotten his head stuck in a lard gourd. He could not see, and he had almost smothered out there in the helpless percussion of his night. This ancient local color allegorizes three of my troubling conditions: blind desire, panic, and blackout drinking. I have felt at times that I might be carrying the living thread that connects the sufi and zen currents, also the vedantic and the high mountain shaman. Then I get drunk, talk trash to a sweet saint woman, fall out my top bunk, scare the children, pee indoors, and I know the golden thread I hold is pissant bad behavior and not being present for the events of my life. 90 f r o m t e n t m a k i n g I am a bad dog with sex and alcohol. I do not lead a pure life. Then I remember the dog inside his lard inside his gourd inside himself, the dog that grows still and quiet. I have somehow achieved these breathing holes. I cannot see where I am going, but I can breathe. Others have died on nights like this. Maybe some human type will find me and ungourd my head and scrape this shit off and groom my face with turpentine. I fall on my knees to beg forgiveness for meathouse-rude intoxication and give all praise to the being that lives and watches out, dog or not, from the gummed-together eyes of the lard gourd dog. For those not of a monkish cast, I’ll explicate. The lard is the mind. The gourd the container of that. The meathouse, this temptatious world. The dog is me. What gets quiet behind the dog’s eyes, survives and looks out, has no name, except maybe you. ...

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