Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GEO-BESTIARY: 2, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GEO-BESTIARY: 2, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I walked the same circular path today
Last Line: From a ship mortally far out in the sea.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Change


I walked the same circular path today
in the creek bottom three times.
The first: a blur, roar of snowmelt
in creek, brain jumbling like the rolling
of river stones I watched carefully
with swim goggles long ago, hearing
the stones clack, click, and slow shuffle
along the gravel.
The second time: the creek is muddy,
a Mexican jay follows me at a polite
distance, the mind slows to the color
of wet, beige grass, a large raindrop
hits the bridge of my nose, the remote
mountain canyon has a fresh dusting
of snow. My head hurts pleasantly.
The third time: my life depends
on the three million two hundred seventy-seven
thousand three hundred and thirty-three
pebbles locked into the ground so I
don't fall through the thin skin of earth
on which there is a large coyote-turd full
of Manzanita berries I stepped over twice
without noticing it, a piece of ancient chert,
a fragment of snakeskin, an owl eye
staring from a hole in an Emory oak,
the filaments of eternity hanging in the earthly
air like the frailest of beacons seen
from a ship mortally far out in the sea.





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