Saving Daylight

Modern Times

VII

“I can freely tie myself up without rope.

This talent is in the realm of the antimagic

and many people have it. On a dawn

walk despite the creek, birds and forest

I have to get through the used part,

the murky fluid of rehearsals

and resentments, but then they drain away

and I am finally where I already am,

smack-dab in the middle of each step,

the air you taste, the evening

primrose that startled by my visit

doesn’t turn away. When I read

the ancient manuscripts of the earth

many of the lines are missing

that I’m expected to complete.

I’m the earth, too, sharing this song

of blood and bone with the whale,

monkey and house cat. At eye level

with toad our eyes share the passage

of this ghost ship we boarded at birth.”

~Jim Harrison

From the book, “Saving Daylight,” published by Copper Canyon Press.