Tag: Jim Harrison

T.G.I.F.: Don’t let the clock cut up your life in pieces

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I sit up late dumb as a cow,
which is to say
somewhat conscious with thirst and
hunger, an eye for the new moon
and the morning’s long walk
to the water tank. Everywhere
around me the birds are waiting
for the light. In this world of dreams
don’t let the clock cut up
your life in pieces.

— Jim Harrison, “Rumination” from Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems, by Jim Harrison

Notes:

  • More DK Photos of a Juvenile Egret at Cove Island Park on April 18 2024 here.
  • Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Come back to earth…

dwell on the shortness of life.

Lift up your dark heart and sing a song about

how time drifts past you like the gentlest, almost imperceptible breeze.

— Jim Harrison, from “Cold Poem” in “Saving Daylight.”

Note:

  • Photo: DK @ Daybreak. January 26, 2023. 6:35 a.m.
  • Poem: Thank you Whiskey River
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Saturday Morning

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The Saturday morning meadowlark
came in from high up
with her song gliding into tall grass
still singing. How I’d like
to glide around singing in the summer
then to go south to where I already was
and find fields full of meadowlarks
in winter. But when walking my dog
I want four legs to keep up with her
as she thunders down the hill at top speed
then belly flops into the deep pond.
Lark or dog I crave the impossible.
I’m just human. All too human.

~ Jim Harrison, from “Solstice Litany” in Dead Man’s Float

Notes: Poem Source – Thank you Hammock Papers. Photo: Pixabay

Truth

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“What I would do for wisdom,”
I cried out as a young man.
Evidently not much.
Or so it seems.
Even on walks
I follow the dog.

~ Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry

Source: Thank you Hammock Papers for poem. Photo: Brian Guest with a Vizsla

Back…back…back.

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Am I as old as I am?
Maybe not. Time is a mystery
that can tip us upside down…
Who was I at age seven?

Sixty-eight years later I can still inhabit that boy’s
body without thinking of the time between.
It is the burden of life to be many ages
without seeing the end of time.

– Jim Harrison, from Seven in the Woods from Dead’s Man Float

Notes:

  • Inspired by – “We go back … and back … and back … through the layers of fear, shame, rage, hurt, and negative incantations until we discover the exuberant, unencumbered, delightful, and lovable child that was, and still is, in us.” By Melody Beattie (via Bright, Shiny Objects)
  • Photo: Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan’s Childhood) • Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky 1962 (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)