Drinking Song (Jim Harrison)

I want to die in the saddle. An enemy of the civilization
I want to walk around in the woods, fish and drink.

I'm going to be a child about it and I can't help it, I
was born this way and it makes me very happy to fish and drink.

I left when it was still and walked on the path to
the river, the Yellow Dog, where I spent the day fishing and drinking.

After she left me and I quit my job and wept for a year
and all my poems were born dead, I decided I would only fish and drink.

Water will never leave earth and whiskey is good for the brain.
What else am I supposed to do in these last days but fish and drink?

In the river was a trout, and I was on the bank, my
heart in my chest, clouds above, she was in NY forever and I, fishing and drinking.

Jim Harrison, Outlyer and Ghazals, 1998