Saving Daylight

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by Jim Harrison


  can I imagine beyond these vast rock walls

  with caves sculpted by wind where perhaps

  Geronimo slept quite innocent of television

  and when his three-year-old son died

  made a war these ravens still talk about.

  Easter Morning

  On Easter morning all over America

  the peasants are frying potatoes

  in bacon grease.

  We’re not supposed to have “peasants”

  but there are tens of millions of them

  frying potatoes on Easter morning,

  cheap and delicious with catsup.

  If Jesus were here this morning he might

  be eating fried potatoes with my friend

  who has a ’51 Dodge and a ’72 Pontiac.

  When his kids ask why they don’t have

  a new car he says, “These cars were new once

  and now they are experienced.”

  He can fix anything and when rich folks

  call to get a toilet repaired he pauses

  extra hours so that they can further

  learn what we’re made of.

  I told him that in Mexico the poor say

  that when there’s lightning the rich

  think that God is taking their picture.

  He laughed.

  Like peasants everywhere in the history

  of the world ours can’t figure out why

  they’re getting poorer. Their sons join

  the army to get work being shot at.

  Your ideals are invisible clouds

  so try not to suffocate the poor,

  the peasants, with your sympathies.

  They know that you’re staring at them.

  Corrido Sonorense

  para la banda Los Humildes

  Cuando ella cantó su canción

  aun los conejos y los perros rabiosos escucharon.

  Vivía en una choza de estaño

  a mitad de camino de una montaña cerca de Caborca.

  Sólo tenía doce años, criada por un hermano

  que algún viernes se fue a Hermosillo

  para engañar a los ricos y poderosos

  que le habían robado su cosecha.

  Tres días y tres noches

  esperaba con el corazón en la boca

  al final de su sendero al borde

  del camino polvoriento que conducía a Caborca.

  Hacía calor y estaba tomando el aire

  en sollozos cuando un camión se acercó

  y le tiró un saco con la risa

  de un diablo frío. En el saco

  estaban la lengua de su hermano y su dedo

  con el anillo hecho de crin.

  Ahora se convertiría en puta o moriría de hambre,

  pero se cortó las venas para reunirse con su hermano.

  Si deseas engañar a los ricos y poderosos

  tienes que hacerlo con un arma.

  Sonoran Corrida

  for the band Los Humildes

  When she sang her song

  even rabbits and mad dogs listened.

  She lived in a tin shack

  halfway up a mountain near Caborca.

  She was only twelve, raised by a brother

  who one Friday went to Hermosillo

  to cheat the rich and powerful

  who had stolen his crop.

  Three days and three nights

  she waited with her heart in her throat

  at the end of their path down

  to the dusty road that led to Caborca.

  It was hot and she was drinking the air

  in sobs when a truck drew up

  and threw her a bag with a cold

  devil’s laughter. In the bag

  were her brother’s tongue and finger

  with its ring made of a horsehair nail.

  Now she would become a whore or starve,

  but she cut her wrists to join her brother.

  If you wish to cheat the rich and powerful

  you must do it with a gun.

  Older Love

  His wife has asthma

  so he only smokes outdoors

  or late at night with head

  and shoulders well into

  the fireplace, the mesquite and oak

  heat bright against his face.

  Does it replace the heat

  that has wandered from love

  back into the natural world?

  But then the shadow passion casts

  is much longer than passion,

  stretching with effort from year to year.

  Outside tonight hard wind and sleet

  from three bald mountains,

  and on the hearth before his face

  the ashes we’ll all become,

  soft as the back of a woman’s knee.

  Los viejos tiempos

  En los viejos tiempos no oscurecía hasta medianoche

  y la lluvia y la nieve emergían de la tierra

  en vez de caer del cielo. Las mujeres eran fáciles.

  Cada vez que veías una, dos más aparecían,

  caminando hacia ti marcha atrás al tiempo que su ropa caía.

  El dinero no crecía en las hojas de los árboles sino abrazado

  a los troncos en billeteras de ternero,

  pero sólo podías sacar veinte dólares al día.

  Ciertos hombres volaban tan bien como los cuervos mientras otros trepaban

  los árboles cual ardillas. A siete mujeres de Nebraska

  se les tomó el tiempo nadando río arriba en el Misuri;

  fueron más veloces que los delfines moteados del lugar. Los perros basenji

  podían hablar español, mas decidieron no hacerlo.

  Unos políticos fueron ejecutados por traicionar

  la confianza pública y a los poetas se les dio la ración de un galón

  de vino tinto al día. La gente sólo moría un día

  al año y bellos coros surgían como por un embudo

  a través de las chimeneas de los hospitales donde cada habitación tenía

  un hogar de piedra. Algunos pescadores aprendieron a caminar

  sobre el agua y de niño yo trotaba por los ríos,

  mi caña de pescar siempre lista. Las mujeres que anhelaban el amor

  sólo necesitaban usar pantuflas de oreja de cerdo o aretes

  de ajo. Todos los perros y la gente en libre concurso

  se tornaban de tamaño mediano y color marrón, y en Navidad

  todos ganaban la lotería de cien dólares. Ni Dios ni Jesús

  tenían que descender a la tierra porque ya estaban

  aquí montando caballos salvajes cada noche

  y a los niños se les permitía ir a la cama tarde para oírlos

  pasar al galope. Los mejores restaurantes eran iglesias

  donde los anglicanos servían cocina provenzal, los metodistas toscana

  y así. En ese tiempo el país era dos mil millas

  más ancho, y mil millas más

  profundo. Había muchos valles para caminar aún no descubiertos

  donde tribus indígenas vivían en paz

  aunque algunas tribus eligieron fundar naciones nuevas

  en las áreas desconocidas hasta entonces en las negras

  grietas de los límites entre los estados. Me casé

  con una joven pawnee en una ceremonia detrás de la catarata acostumbrada.

  Las cortes estaban administradas por osos durmientes y pájaros cantaban

  fábulas lúcidas de sus pájaros ancestros que vuelan ahora

  en otros mundos. Algunos ríos fluían demasiado rápido

  para ser útiles pero se les permitió hacerlo cuando acordaron

  no inundar la Conferencia de Des Moines.

  Los aviones de pasajeros se parecían a barcos aéreos con múltiples

  alas aleteantes que tocaban un tipo de música de salón

  en el cielo. Las consólidas crecían en los cañones de pistola

  y
cada quien podía seleccionar siete días al año

  con libertad de repetir pero este no era un programa

  popular. En esos días el vacío giraba

  con flores y animales salvajes desconocidos asistían

  a funerales campestres. Todos los tejados en las ciudades

  eran huertas de flores y verduras. El río Hudson era potable

  y una ballena jorobada fue vista cerca del muelle

  de la calle 42, su cabeza llena de la sangre azul del mar,

  su voz alzando las pisadas de la gente

  en su tradicional antimarcha, su inocuo desarreglo.

  Podría seguir pero no lo haré. Toda mi evidencia

  se perdió en un incendio pero no antes que fuera masticada

  por todos los perros que habitan la memoria.

  Uno tras otro ladran al sol, a la luna y las estrellas

  tratando de acercarlas otra vez.

  The Old Days

  In the old days it stayed light until midnight

  and rain and snow came up from the ground

  rather than down from the sky. Women were easy.

  Every time you’d see one, two more would appear,

  walking toward you backwards as their clothes dropped.

  Money didn’t grow in the leaves of trees but around

  the trunks in calf’s leather money belts,

  though you could only take twenty bucks a day.

  Certain men flew as well as crows while others ran

  up trees like chipmunks. Seven Nebraska women

  were clocked swimming upstream in the Missouri

  faster than the local spotted dolphins. Basenjis

  could talk Spanish but all of them chose not to.

  A few political leaders were executed for betraying

  the public trust and poets were rationed a gallon

  of Burgundy a day. People only died on one day

  a year and lovely choruses funneled out

  of hospital chimneys where every room had a field-

  stone fireplace. Some fishermen learned to walk

  on water and as a boy I trotted down rivers,

  my flyrod at the ready. Women who wanted love

  needed only to wear pig’s ear slippers or garlic

  earrings. All dogs and people in free concourse

  became medium sized and brown, and on Christmas

  everyone won the hundred-dollar lottery. God and Jesus

  didn’t need to come down to earth because they were

  already here riding wild horses every night

  and children were allowed to stay up late to hear

  them galloping by. The best restaurants were churches,

  with Episcopalians serving Provençal, the Methodists Tuscan,

  and so on. In those days the country was an extra

  two thousand miles wider, and an additional thousand

  miles deep. There were many undiscovered valleys

  to walk in where Indian tribes lived undisturbed

  though some tribes chose to found new nations

  in the heretofore unknown areas between the black

  boundary cracks between states. I was married

  to a Pawnee girl in a ceremony behind the usual waterfall.

  Courts were manned by sleeping bears and birds sang

  lucid tales of ancient bird ancestors who now fly

  in other worlds. Certain rivers ran too fast

  to be usable but were allowed to do so when they consented

  not to flood at the Des Moines Conference.

  Airliners were similar to airborne ships with multiple

  fluttering wings that played a kind of chamber music

  in the sky. Pistol barrels grew delphiniums

  and everyone was able to select seven days a year

  they were free to repeat but this wasn’t a popular

  program. In those days the void whirled

  with flowers and unknown wild animals attended

  country funerals. All the rooftops in cities were flower

  and vegetable gardens. The Hudson River was drinkable

  and a humpback whale was seen near the Forty-second Street

  pier, its head full of the blue blood of the sea,

  its voice lifting the steps of people

  in their traditional anti-march, their harmless disarray.

  I could go on but won’t. All my evidence

  was lost in a fire but not before it was chewed

  on by all the dogs who inhabit memory.

  One by one they bark at the sun, moon and stars

  trying to draw them closer again.

  Two Girls

  Late November (full moon last night),

  a cold Patagonia moon, the misty air

  tinkled slightly, a rank-smelling bull

  in the creek bottom seemed to be crying.

  Coyotes yelped up the canyon

  where they took a trip-wire photo of a jaguar

  last spring. I hope he’s sleeping or eating

  a delicious deer. Our two little girl dogs

  are peeing in the midnight yard, nervous

  about the bull. They can’t imagine a jaguar.

  The Little Appearances of God

  I

  When god visits us he sleeps

  without a clock in empty bird nests.

  He likes the view. Not too high.

  Not too low. He winks a friendly wink

  at a nearby possum who sniffs the air

  unable to detect the scent

  of this not-quite-visible stranger.

  A canyon wren lands on the bridge

  of god’s nose deciding the new experience

  is worth the fear. He’s an old bird

  due to flee the earth

  not on his own wings. This is a good

  place to feel his waning flutter

  of breath, hear his last delicate musical

  call, his death song, and then he hopes

  to become part of god’s body. Feeling

  the subdued dread of his illness

  he won’t know for sure until it’s over.

  II

  He’s now within the form of a whip-poor-will

  sitting on a faded gravestone in the twilight

  while children pass by the cemetery

  almost enjoying the purity of their fright.

  Since he’s god he can read the gravestone

  upside down. Little Mary disappeared

  in the influenza epidemic back in 1919.

  He ponders that it took a couple of million

  years to invent these children but perhaps microbes

  must also have freedom from predestination.

  He’s so tired of hearing about this ditzy Irishman,

  Bishop Ussher, who spread the rumor that creation

  only took six thousand years when it required twelve billion.

  Man shrunk himself with the biological hysteria

  of clocks, the machinery of dread. You spend twelve billion

  years inventing ninety billion galaxies and who appreciates

  your work except children, birds and dogs, and a few

  other genius strokes like otters and porpoises, those humans

  who kiss joy as it flies, who see though not with the eye.

  III

  Years ago he kept an eye on DePrise Brescia,

  a creature of beauty. He doesn’t lose track of people

  as some need no help, bent to their own particulars.

  No dancing or music allowed.

  The world in front of their noses has disappeared.

  Dickinson wrote, “The Brain is just the weight of God.”

  We said goodbye to our farm and a stately heron walked up the steps

  and looked in our window. I had suffocated myself

  but then south of Zihuatanejo just outside the Pacific’s

  crashing and lethal surf in a panga I heard the billions

  of cicadas in the
wild bougainvillea on the mountainsides,

  a new kind of thunder. He gave Thoreau, Modigliani

  and Neruda the same birthday to tease with his abilities.

  Waves

  A wave lasts only moments

  but underneath another one is always

  waiting to be born. This isn’t the Tao

  of people but of waves.

  As a student of people, waves, the Tao,

  I’m free to let you know that waves

  and people tell the same story

  of how blood and water were born,

  that our bodies are full of creeks

  and rivers flowing in circles,

  that we are kin of the waves

  and the nearly undetectable ocean currents,

  that the moon pleads innocence

  of its tidal power, its wayward control

  of our dreams, the way the moon tugs

  at our skulls and loins, the way

  the tides make their tortuous love to the land.

  We’re surely creatures with unknown gods.

  Time

  Nothing quite so wrenches

  the universe like time.

  It clings obnoxiously

  to every atom, not to speak

  of the moon, which it weighs

  down with invisible wet dust.

  I used to think the problem

  was space, the million miles

  between me and the pretty waitress

  across the diner counter stretching

  to fill the coffee machine with water,

  but now I know it’s time

  which withers me moment by moment

  with her own galactic smile.

  An Old Man

  Truly old men, he thought, don’t look too far past the applesauce and cottage cheese, filling the tank of the kerosene heater over there in the corner of the cabin near the stack of National Geographics from the forties containing nipples from Borneo and the Amazon, tattooed and pierced. He carries extra cash because he woke up on a recent morning thinking that the ATM at the IGA had acted suspiciously. The newspaper said pork steak was ninety-nine cents a pound but it turned out to be a newspaper from last week and pork steak had shot up to one thirty-nine. He can’t eat all the fish he catches and sometimes the extras get pushed toward the back of the refrigerator so that the rare visitor says, “Jesus Christ Frank something stinks.” A feral tomcat that sometimes sleeps in the pump shed will eat it anyway. He read that his thin hair will continue growing in the grave, a nice idea but then cremation is cheaper. His great-granddaughter from way downstate wears an African-type nose ring and brought him a bird book but he’d rather know what birds call themselves. He often dreams of the nine dogs of his life and idly wonders if he’ll see them again. He’s not counting on it but it’s another nice idea. One summer night in a big moon he walked three miles to his favorite bend of the river and sat on a stump until first light when a small bear swam past. In the night his ghost wife appeared and asked, “Frank, I miss you, aren’t you holding on too long?” and he said, “It’s not for me to decide.” Last November he made a big batch of chili from a hind-quarter of a bear a neighbor shot. There are seven containers left and they shouldn’t go to waste. Waste not, want not.

 

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