Weekly Poem: ‘The Golden Window’

By Jim Harrison

From “The Golden Window”

I hope to define my life, whatever is left,
by migrations, south and north with the birds
and far from the metallic fever of clocks,
the self staring at the clock saying, “I must do this.”
I can’t tell the time on the tongue of the river
in the cool morning air, the smell of the ferment
of greenery, the dust off the canyon’s rock walls,
the swallows swooping above the scent of raw water.

Jim Harrison has published more than 30 collections of poetry and prose. “In Search of Small Gods” is his twelfth book of poems. His connection to rural landscapes is evident in his free-verse, imagistic poetry, which often explores human and animal drives set against an unforgiving natural world. His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. He has been poetry editor of “The Nation” has also served as the food columnist for the magazines Smart and Esquire. For more about Harrison, visit our Poetry Series.