songs that greet sunrise
rain, twilight – Here I am – sing
what and where they are
Not how many different birds I’ve seen
but how many have seen me,
letting the event go unremarked
except for the quietest sense of malevolence,
dead quiet, then restarting their lives
after fear, not with song, which is reserved
for lovers, but the harsh and quizzical
chatter with which we all get by:
but if she or he passes by and the need
is felt we hear the music that transcends all fear,
and sometimes the simpler songs that greet sunrise,
rain or twilight. Here I am.
They sing what and where they are.
Geo-Bestiary, #34 as published in Jim Harrison: Complete Poems by Jim Harrison, Copper Canyon Press, 2021.
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