Alive.

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across

the lake in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,

the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,

used tires, taverns saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,

abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,

gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls

who haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,

leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,

turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages in the woods,

the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands

of birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogs

that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow

me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,

the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see

from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling

to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.

Jim Harrison