Cabbage

If only I had the genius of a cabbage
or even an onion to grow myself
in their laminae from the holy core
that bespeaks the final shape. Nothing
is outside of us in this overinterpreted world.
Bruises are the mouths of our perceptions.
The gods who have died are able to come
to life again. It's their secret that they wish
to share if anyone knows that they exist.
Belief is a mood that weighs nothing on anyone's
scale but nevertheless exists. The moose
down the road wears the black cloak of a god
and the dead bird lifts from a bed of moss
in a shape totally unknown to us.
It's after midnight in Montana.
I test the thickness of the universe, its resilience
to carry us further than any of us wish to go.
We shed our shapes slowly like moving water,
which ends up as it will so utterly far from home.

Copyright © 2006 Jim Harrison All rights reserved
from Saving Daylight
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission