Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Monday, December 14th, 2020.

Today's poem, or poems, rather, are by an American poet named Jim Harrison. He lived from

December 11, 1937 to March 26, 2016. His birthday was just a couple days ago on December 11th, and I've

never read any Jim Harrison

here on the podcast. So similar to what I did for the December 10th episode, I want to share

with you three poems by Jim Harrison. He's something of a legend among many American literature

lovers, and he was kind of a Western figure figure kind of a rough and tumble guy he

he had an accident when he was a child and so he kind of had a tough cowboy like visage about him

he is perhaps most notable for his writing of a novella called legends of the Fall, which was made into a movie, I believe.

I think there's a series of novellas, and at least two of them were made into movies.

So you may have seen that.

He also wrote many poems and received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contributions to Midwestern Literature.

And today, as I said, I'm going to read three poems in honor of what would have been his

birthday on December 11th.

Up first, I'm going to read a poem called Barking.

It goes like this.

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.

...