Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NOT WRITING MY NAME, by JAMES HARRISON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NOT WRITING MY NAME, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the snow, that is. The 'j' could have been
Last Line: I have become the place the crow didn't appear.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Snow; Winter; Writing & Writers


In the snow, that is. The "J" could have been
three hundred yards into the high pasture
across the road. The same with the "I" which I intended
to dot by sprawling and flopping in a drift. The "M"
naturally would have required something more
than twelve hundred yards of hard walking as we
have two empty-bottomed isosceleses to deal with.
What star-crossed jock ego would churn through those
drifts to write a name invisible except to crows?
And the dog would have confused the crows the way
he first runs ahead, then crisscrosses my path.
It's too cold anyhow - ten below at noon though the sun
would tell me otherwise. And the wind whips coils
and wisps of snow across the hardened drifts and around
my feet like huge ghost snakes. These other signatures:
Vole tracks so light I have to kneel to trace his
circlings which are his name. Vole. And an unknown bird,
scarcely heavier than the vole, that lacks a left foot. Fox tracks
leading up a drift onto my favorite boulder where he swished
his tail, definitely peed, and left. The dog sniffs
the tracks, also pees but sparingly. He might need it later,
he saves his messages. For a moment mastodons float
through the trees, thunderhead colored, stuffing their maws
with branches. This place used to be Africa. Now it's so cold
there are blue shadows in my footprints, and a blue-shadow
dog runs next to my own, flat and rippling to the snow, less than
paper thick. I try to invoke a crow for company; none appears.
I have become the place the crow didn't appear.





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