Hard times

I actually painted this. I jessoed the crow shape where I was going to paint the

	cloudy sky. But I left it like a negative black.
	The other boot doesn't drop from heaven. I've made this path and nobody else leading crookedly up through the pasture where I'll never reach the top of Antelope Butte. It is where my mind begins to learn my heart's language on this endless wobbly path, veering south and north informed by my all-too-vivid dreams which are a compass without a needle. Today the gods speak in drunk talk pulling at a heart too old for this walk, a cold windy day kneeling at the mouth of the snake den where they killed 800 rattlers. Moving higher my thumping chest recites the names of a dozen friends who have died in recent years, names now incomprehensible as the mountains across the river far behind me. I'll always be walking up toward Antelope Butte. Perhaps when we die our names are taken from us by a divine magnet and are free to flutter here and there within the bodies of birds. I'll be a simple crow who can reach the top of Antelope Butte. Jim Harrison (click to hear the poem)