Jim Harrison, 1937–2016
I would imagine underneath those warming bear hugs
was a kinda kind of soul
as your many poems attest. Those summer breezes.
Those many hazy sunsets nature’s voices echoing afar.
A life continually fulfilled bordering on the empty
and those inexplicable tragedies,
those bad timings unreconciled, then reconciled with time.
You had no answer that would satisfy your curiosity
and the why, the wherewithal just round the bend.
The morning mists descending in an angled quietude.
A birdcall here and there.
A rising wind unfurled and furling at the top-most branches of a conifer.
Those wetlands mysterioso.
A last-known address unknown at last.