I have been thinking about age a bit lately -- that slow moving time which places us into moments we never thought we would know. This poems speaks to that. I have always loved Harrison. My college roommate had a few of his books and I remember him laying out in the yard with dirty shoes and uncombed hair, waiting on his girlfriend to rumble up in her truck, reading a book of stories. Where do these memories go when we leave? Who keeps them?

--

Before the Trip

by Jim Harrison

When old people travel, it's for relief
from a life that they know too well,
not routine but the very long slope
of disbelief in routine, the unbearable
lightness of brushing teeth that aren't all
there, the weakened voice calling out
for the waiter who doesn't turn;
the drink that once was neither here
nor there is now a singular act of worship.
The sun that rises every day says
I don't care to the torments of love
and hate that once pushed one back
and forth on the blood's red wagon.
All dogs have become beautiful
in the way they look at cats and wonder
what to do. Breakfast is an event
and bird flu only a joke of fear the world
keeps playing. On the morning walk
the horizon is ours when we wish.
We know that death is a miracle for everyone
or so the gods say in a whisper of rain
in the immense garden we couldn't quite trace.

"Before the Trip" by Jim Harrison from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press, 2006.