Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GEO-BESTIARY: 24, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GEO-BESTIARY: 24, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A whiff of that dead bird along the trail
Last Line: Still wondering above all else what kind of beast am I?
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Death; Introspection; Dead, The


A whiff of that dead bird along the trail
is a whiff of what I'd smell like
if I was lucky enough to die
well back in the woods or out in the desert.
The heavy Marine compass doesn't remind
me that I'm somewhere in America,
likely in northern Michigan by the maple and alder,
the wildly blooming sugarplum and dogwood,
wandering aimlessly in great circles
as your gait tends to pull you slowly aside,
my one leg slightly distorted at birth
though I was fifty before my mother told me,
but then from birth we're all mortally wounded.
When I was a stray dog in New York City
in 1957, trying to eat on a buck a day
while walking thousands of blocks
in that human forest I thought was enchanted,
not wanting to miss anything but missing
everything because at nineteen dreams
daily burst the brain, dismay the senses,
the interior weeping drowning your steps,
your mind an underground river
running counter to your tentative life.
"Our body is a molded river," said wise Novalis.
Bloody brain and heart, also mind and soul finally
becoming a single river, flowing in a great circle,
flowing from darkness to blessed darkness,
still wondering above all else what kind of beast am I?





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