5.1.2025 – changes in our lives

changes in our lives
accidents, happenstances
the slightest pushes

It was the first truly important night of my life.

Despite my aching bones and blistered feet I sensed a possibility of strength, of a mission that drew solace and the chance of success or victory from the fire, from the dog, from my fellow human Fred, the night, the bright moon and stars, even the owl we were hearing intermittently.

This sounds vaguely absurd now but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction, and on the more negative side the girl you met at a gathering you didn’t want to attend who infected your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction

From True North by Jim Harrison ( Grove/Atlantic, New York, 2004)

So many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction.

Then toss in the forward march of time.

Like the tide that twice a day comes in and sweeps the beach clean and leaves a clean slate wide open for accidents, happenstances or the slightest pushes in any direction.

All blank and wide open for changes that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

Maybe this is where Jesus was going when mounted up on that hill side and sermonized saying, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Trouble enough for each day that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

3.25.2025 – knowing that time stops

knowing that time stops
when heart stops walk off the earth
into the night air

Marching by Jim Harrison

At dawn I heard among birdcalls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother’s amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, crisscrossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door forty years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the earth into the night air.

As printed in Jim Harrison: The Complete Poems by Jim Harrison and Copper Canyon Press.

As it says in the preface – or epigram – or prologue or as it is labeled, Editor’s Note:

Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.

Jim Harrison

3.16.2025 – few years back began

few years back began
to lose the world of people
I couldn’t hold on …

INVISIBLE as published in Jim Harrison: Complete Poems by Jim Harrison (Copper Canyon Press, 2021).

Within the wilder shores of sky
billions of insects are migrating
for reasons of sex and food,
or so I’m told by science,
in itself as invisible as the specters
of love and death. What can I see
from here but paper and the mind’s
random images? A living termite
was found on sticky paper at 19,000 feet.
Perhaps she thought she had lost
the world as I think I must, barring
flora, fauna, family, dogs, the earth,
the mind ground of being as it is.
A few years back I began to lose
the world of people. I couldn’t hold on.
Rüppell’s vulture was seen at 36,000 feet
for reasons the gods keep from us.

3.9.2025 – songs that greet sunrise

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.

1.17.2025 – God’s toes are buried

God’s toes are buried
deep in the earth He’s ready
to run but … but where?

The cost of flight is landing.
On this warm winter day in the southwest,
down here on the edge of the border I want
to go to France where we all came from
where the Occident was born near the ancient
caves near Lascaux. At home I’m only
sitting on the lip of this black hole, a well
that descends to the center of the earth.
With a big telescope aimed straight down
I see a red dot of fire and hear the beast howling.
My back is suppurating with disease,
the heart lurches left and right,
the brain sings its ditties.
Everywhere blank white movies wait to be seen.
The skylark dove within inches of the rocks
before it stopped and rose again.
God’s toes are buried deep in the earth.
He’s ready to run. But where?

The Present by Jim Harrison