Anniversary of Jim Harrison death

Jim Harrison in his Livingston Montana writing cabin (Photo by Kurt Markus)

“Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.” – Jim Harrison

In summer I walk the dogs at dawn
before the rattlesnakes awake. In cold weather
I walk the dogs at dawn out of habit.
In the pastures we find many oval deer beds
of crushed grass. Their bodies are their homes.

***
I left this mangy little
three-legged bear two big fish
on a stump. He ate them at night
and at dawn slept like a god
leaning against the stump
in a chorus of birds.

***
The fly on the window is not a distant crow
in the sky. We’re forced into these decisions.
People are forever marrying the wrong people
and the children of the world suffer.
Their dreams hang in the skies out of reach.