I Believe by Jim Harrison

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across the lake
in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,
the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,
used tires, taverns, saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,
abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,
gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls
who haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,
leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,
turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods,
the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands
of birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogs
that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow
me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,
the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see
from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling
to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.

Barking by Jim Harrison

The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn’t die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.

Théophile Steinlen, Modele Lisant, 1898

Diane Arbus , Jorge Luis Borges, Central Park, NYC , 1969

Tadeusz Styka , Portret Jayne Manners , c1930-1935

Moïse Kisling , Jeune Fille Assise (Sitting Girl), 1943

Ruth Bernhard, Cheeks , 1970

Ignacio Zuloaga, Condesa Mathieu de Noailles, 1913

Max Kurzweil, Woman in a Yellow Dress, 1899

Clarence John Laughlin, The Fierce-Eyed Building, 1938

August Strindberg , The Town, 1903

Jan Toorop, The Three Brides, 1893

Harold Feinstein, Times Square lights on car, 1953

Dorothea Tanning, Notes for an Apocalypse, 1978

Willem van Haecht, Alexander the Great visits the studio of Apelles, 1628–37

Auguste Rodin (carved by Jean Escoula), Danaïd, conceived in 1889 & carved in 1890

Auguste Rodin, Drawing of Camille Claudel, 1880s

Blackbear Bosin, Eagle Dance, 1955

Blackbear Bosin, Wind Spirit, 1955