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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GEO-BESTIARY: 25, by JAMES HARRISON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: The resplendent female 'elegant trogon.'
Last Line: This all took three seconds by my geologic watch.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Birds; Introspection
First Line: The resplendent female 'elegant trogon.'
Last Line: This all took three seconds by my geologic watch.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Birds; Introspection
The resplendent female "elegant trogon,"
her actual name, appeared at my study
window the very moment my heroine died
(in a novel of course) so that my hair
bristled like the time a lion coughed right
outside our thin screen-walled shack.
What does this mean? Nothing whatsoever,
except itself, I am too quick to answer.
This bird is so rare she never saw it.
I had expected her soul to explode
into a billion raindrops, falling on the farm
where she was born, or far out in the ocean
where she drowned, precisely where I once saw
two giant sea turtles making love.
Full fathom five thy lovely sister lies,
tumbling north in the Gulfstream current,
but then the soul rose up as vapor, blown westward
to the Sea of Cortez, up a canyon, inhabiting
this quetzal bird who chose to appear at my window.
This all took three seconds by my geologic watch.
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